The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-05-28
PRESIDENTS REQUEST To- CONGRESS-
FOR LEGISLATION UPON WAR TAXES

Gentlemen of the Congress-:
1t is with unaffected reluctance that
come to ask you to prolong your
session long enough to provide more
adequate resources for the Treasury,
for the conduct of the war / have
reason to appreciate as fully as you do
how arduous the session has been.
Your labors have been severe and pro-
tracted. You have passed a long
series of measures which required the
debate of many doubtful questions of
judgment and many exceedingly diff
cult questions of principle as well as
of practice.
The summer is upon US in which
labor and counsel are twice arduous
and are constantly apt to be impaired
by lassitude and fatigue. The cleo
tons are at hand and we ought as
soon as possible to go and render an
intimate account of our trusteeship to
the people who delegated US to act
for them in the weighty and anxious
matters that crowd 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
unavailing. We have either done our
duty or we have not. The fact will be
as gross and plain as the duty itself.
In such a case lassitude and fatigue
seem negligible enough. The facts are
tonic and suffice to freshen the labor.
Explains Wisdom of Action.
And the facts are these: Additional
revenues must manifestly be provided
for. 1t would be a most unsound
policy to raise too large a proportion
of them by loan, and it is evident that
the four billions now provided for by
taxation will not of themselves sus-
tain the greatly enlarged budget to
which we must Immediately look for
ward. We canot 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 of the
present calendar year, whose account
ings and expenditures will then be
closed.
We can't get increased taxes unless
the country knows what they are to
be and practices the necessary econ
omy to make them available. Def
niteness, early definiteness, as to what
its tasks are to be is absolutely neces-
sary for the successful administration
Of the Treasury. 1t cannot frame
fair and workable regulations in
haste; and it must frame it's regula-
tons in haste if it is not to know it's
exact task until the very eve of its
are marred, moreover, by inequities
which ought to be remedied. Indis-
putab1e facts, every one; and we can
not alter or blink them. To state
them is argument enough.
And yet perhaps you will permit
me to dwell for moment upon the
situation they disclose. Enormous
loans freely spent in the stimulation
of industry of almost every sort pro-
duce mutations and extravagances
which presently make the whole eco
nomic structure questionable and in
secure, and the very basis of credit is
cut away. Only fair, equitably distri-
buted taxation of the widest incidence
and drawing chiefly from the sources
which would be likely to demoralize
credit by their very abundance can
prevent initiation and keep our indus
trial system free of speculation and
waste.
Unfair to Wait.
We shall naturally turn, therefore, l
suppose, to war profits and incomes
and Injuries for the additional taxes.
But the war profits and incomes upon
which the increased taxes will be lev
led will be the profits and incomes of
the calendar year 1918. It would be
manifestly unfair to wait until the
early months of 1919 to. say what they
are to be. 1t might be difficult, I
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 Treausry must anticipate
them. 1t must use the money they
are to produce before it is due. It
must sell short time certificates of in
debtedness. In the autumn a much
larger sale of long time bonds must
be effected than has yet been at
tempted. 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 low are investors to approach
the purchase of bonds with any sort
of confidence OF knowledge of their
own affairs if they do not know what
taxes they are to pay and what econ
omies and adjustments of their bus
mess they must effect? I cannot as
sure the country of a successful ad-
ministration 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 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
ID the ports of France and England
with regiment after regiment, thou
sand after thousand, to join them I'M
til the enemy shall be beaten and
brought to reckoning with mankind
There can be no pause or intermis-
sion. The great enterprise must, on
the contrary, be pushed with greater
and greater energy. The volume of
our might must steadily and rapidly
be augmented until there can be no
question of resisting it. If that is to
be accomplished, gentlemen, money
must sustain it to the utmost.
Our financial program must no more