Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-05
WEALTH TO THE UTMOST
The Nation will Crit Its Teeth and Pay
the Stupendous Sum to Be Levied
by the War Revenue Bill

Dy tne war neNenuc Dill
TNHE war revenue bill now before Con-
L gress levies taxes which it is esti-
mated will yield more than eight billion
dollars.
The stupendousness of this sum would
have appalled, the statesmen who made
the plans for financing the Civil War.
In no single year of that conflict did the
ordinary receipts of the Government from
taxation exceed half a billion dollars.
We are planning to raise in one year
sixteen times as much, or sum equal to
the total receipts of the Government
from 1850 to 1882, including all the ex-
traordinary revenues of the Civil War
period.
The Civil War expenditures reached
their maximum in 1865, when total of
little more than a billion dollars was paid
out in the fiscal year.
1t is planned to spend twenty-four
billion dollars in the coming year. One
third of this sum is to be raised by tax
alton and the other two-thirds by the
proceeds of loan.
enormous sums would not have been ad-
mitted by any financier Ten, or even five,
years ago. When men talked of the
possibility of general European war
they were wont to say that it could not
last six months because it would be
waged on such scale that it would
bankrupt the nation before six months
had passed
The war has lasted more than four
years and, so far as any one can see,
there are available financial resources
enough 20 carry it on for two or three
years more.
All the predictions of the fnanciers
have been proved false, for the mobility
of the wealth of the warning nations has
proved equal to all the demands upon It,
This is the most astonishing material
fact established by the acdr.
Within its realm it is as great a rere-
lation as the awakening Of the nations
to the spiritual meaning of the conflict.
We were told that this was an age of
materialism, but the people about whom
the commentators thought they knew so
much have proved that they can be
moved by an ideal and that they are
willing to make supreme sacrifices that
this ideal may be realized.
The mobilization of the wealth of
America contemplated in the revenue bill
and in the loan soon to be foated would
not be possible if the American people
cd fhot fIubt-
ing for something greater and more i'm
portant than mere material gains or than
mere physical comfort. We have the
money. The Treasury Department esti-
mated that the wealth of the nation in
1918 amounted to a hundred and eighty
National City Bank Of New York esti-
mated it in 1917 as two hundred and
forty billions, an increase of fifty-three
billions in four years.
When we consider this enormous ex-
pansion in material possessions in so
short time the task of collecting eight
billions in taxes seems easy. And the
plans to float a loan of sixteen billions
will involve merely the investment of
the expansion of the national wealth in
Government bonds.
Yet the taxes to be levied cannot be
paid without readjustment of the man.
ner of living of many families. The
burden will fall heavily upon the we'll
to-do and it will take large proportion
of the incomes of the very rich. The
successful business man with an income
of 100000 who has been putting back
into his business every year large part
of his profits will have to pay to the
Government S165,0O0 as an income tax.
This will affect the development of his
business. But he must submit.
Must submit? 1t is morally certain
| that he and the men with smaller and
larger incomes will pay their tax as part
| Of the price demanded of US for the reali-
zation of the ideal for which we are
fighting. They a0W all respect the de-
mands of the Government as the auto
mobile OWners respected the request that
! they keep their cars IN their garages last
Sunday in order that gasoline might be
saUed.
at comes hard, but it must be DONE"
is what we are all thinking. We are
| giving our sons and brothers and hus-
bands, and we are giving our money with
unanimity and a conservation of pur-
pose the like of which cynics never ex-
pected to see in this hardened old world.