The Washington herald., 1918-08-15
A Few Sin Asit.te.

Hon. Claude Kitchin. head Of the House COM
mittee that's cooking up the war tax program,
contributes to the Forum an article from which we
take these excerpts:
"We must keep in mind that business as 1t re-
lates to the national revenues has two important
and necessary functions to perform; FIRST. to fur
nish the government large portion of its needed
collection; second. to help the government dispose
of its liberty bonds at each new issue.
Without profits it can perform neither, and If
incentive and ambition of business be destroyed
there will be profits. We must take care that
the goose that lays the golden egg be not killed
or disabled.
"The taxpayer however big he be, can be sure
that the committee and Congress will not adopt
in the making of tax bill any such theory as
taking for the government all income in excess of
any specified amount, being agitated by quite
a respectable few"
Mr.. Kitchins excuses for not taking all the
blood money-excess war prohts-will please all
the prohteers in the nation, but il is doubtful
if such excuses will fool all the people. all the
time. in time
To furnish the government large portion Of
its money is not necessarily function of
business. Government can take over business and
take all the profit It is running the postal and
insurance DuSlncSS dt prOHL II mas taken over
the railroad, telegraph and telephone BUSINESS
and will eventually be running them at profit, If
let alone Mr.. Kitchn believes that the other alter
native-business, with blood money profits the
better.
The second function of business, says Mr.
Kitchin, is to help the government sell liberty
bonds. In other words, unless allowed part of its
blood money, business will lie down on patriotic
endeavor. Does the patriotism of the business
world depend upon reasonable profits plus blood
money? If so. is it not high time that govern
ment took over business, a safeguard and war
necessity?
We are soIcitous for the health of the geese
that lay the golden eggs as anybody else, but who
are the geese? Are they the meat packers, copper
and steel kings, coal barons, oil lords, the cor
porations? No. The geese are the hundred mil
lions of people who consume The excess war
profits is money from the os per cent every dollar
of it. 1t is money which, under fearless and
honest policy, would be put by the masses into
liberty bonds and stamps and Red Cross
funds. These geese lay the golden eggs, all right,
and yet we hand over large part of their eggs
to prohteers a brbe for the latter's patriotism
1t must be right pleasant for the fellers who
are grabbing off from this war 90 40, 100 ZOO 400
per cent profit to be assured by Mr.. Kitchin, head
of the Ways and Means Committee, that neither
his committee nor Congress will tax in excess of
any specified amount of profits, "agitated
by quite respectable few" That policy 10 re-
served for and applied to the ninety-fve or 100
millions of geese who, in the final analysis lay
the golden eggs which are to be gathered by the
government, aided by the lovers of blood money,
the excess profits benehciaries.
Is America in the for all she's worth? Her
masses Not only do liberty bonds, war
stamps and Red Cross donations, taxes and the
cost of living take the reasonable profits on their
labor-their business investment-but all their
profits in of the reasonable figure. A re-
spectacle few agtate; the quiescent niney6ve mil
lions stand unjust plucking.
But government, or Congress, as represented by
Mr.. Kitchn's committee, is not yet in the war for
all it's worth. 1t has the obsession that sop, in
the form of bloody excess profits, must be thrown
to somebody. And, if this is the best thing for
all of US, it follows that the war should be pro-
longed. Sounds Kruppian and Hohenzollernish,
but business is business However, we will always
have "a respectable few" in this democracy, agi-
tating against bloody profits, rotten army pro-
Visions faulty shells, continuous slaughter of our
soldiers, and such things, and maybe the few will
grow.