Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-05-27
President Urges
Sound Tax LdlU
Continued from Page One
cannot alter or blink them. To
state them is argument enough.

And vet 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 inflatOnS and eXtraNag ganCeS
which presently make the whole
economic structure questionable and
insecure and the very basis of credit
is cut away. Only fair, equitahly
distributed taxation, Of the widest
incidence and drawing chiefly from
the sources which would he likely
to demorali2c credit by their very
abundance can prevent imitation and
keep our Industrial system free of
speculation and waste We shall
naturally turn, therefore, ! suppose,
to war profits and incomes and lux
uries for the additional taxes. But
the war profits and incomes upon
which the increased taxes will be
levied will be the profits and incomes
of the calendar year 1918. Ii would
be manifestly unfair to wait until
the early months of 1919 to say
what they are to be. II might be
difficult, | should Imagine, TO run
the mill with water that had already
gone over the wheel.
Greatest Bond Sale Coming
Moreover, taxes of that sort will
not be paid until the June of next
year and the Treasury must antici-
pate them. 1t must use the money
they produce before it is due. II
must sell short.time certificates or
Indebtedness. In the autum much
larger sale of long time bonds must
he effected than has yet been at
tempted. What are the bankers to
think of the certificates il they do
not certainly know where the money
is to come from which is to take
them up? And how are the in
vestors to approach the purchase of
bonds with any sort of confidence or
knowledge of their own affairs II
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 if 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 seem 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
il. Hundreds of thousands of our
men, carrying our hearts with them
nVtH
and ships are crOwding faster and
faster to the ports of France and
England with regiment after regi-
ment, thousand after thousand, to
Join them until the enemy shall be
h"".Cn and brought to "a reckoning
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 it. If that is to
| he accomplished, gentlemen, money
must sustain 1t to the utmost.
Our financial program must no
mere be left i'm doubt or suffered to
lag than our ordnance program or
our ship program or our munitions
program or our program for making
millions of men eady. These others
are not programs, indeed, but mere
plans upon paper, unless there is to
be- an uRquestiOnable supply Of
money.
That is the situation, and it is the
situation which creates the duty, no
choice or preference of ours. There
is only one way to meet that duty.
We must meet it without selfishness
or fear of consequences, Politics Is
adjourned. The elections will go to
those who think least Of it; to those
who go TO the constituencies without
explanations or excuses, with a
plain record Of duty faithfully and
disintercstedly performed.