The Benson signal., 1918-06-01
ASKED BY PRESIDENT WILSON
IN ADDRESS BEFORE JOINT
SESSION OF CONGRESS.
TO LEVY TAXES AT ONCE
Would Place Burden of Struggle on
Large Incomes, War Profits and
Luxuries, and Declares Amer
ica's Great Opportunity
Is at Hand.
Western Newspaper Union News Service.

Western Newspaper Union News Service.
Washington, May %. President
Wilson personally took charge of the
war tax legislation Monday, and ap-
pearing Unexpectedly before a joint
session of Congress, declared it was
necessary to proceed Immediately with
new war tax laws.
The Presidents address in full fol-
lows:
"Gentlemen of the Congress:
'It is with unaffected reluctance
that I come to ask you to prolong
your session long enough to provide
more adequate resources for the treas
ury 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
measures which required the debate
of many doubtful questions of judg-
ment and many exceedingly difficult
questions of principle as well as of
practice. The summer is upon US in
which labor and counsel are twice ar
duOus and are constantly apt to be
impaired by lassitude and fatigue
'"The elections are at hand, and we
ought as soon as possible to go and
render an intimate account of our
trusteeship to the people who dele
gated us to act for them in the
weignty and anxious matters that
crowd upon US in these days of criti-
cal choice and action.
Must Do Our Duty.
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 unava1llng. 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.
"And the facts are these: Addi-
tional revenues must manifestly be
provided for. 1t would be most un-
sound policy to raise too large a pro-
portion of them by loan, and it is evi-
dent that the four billions now pro-
vided for by taxation will not of them
selves sustain the greatly enlarged
budget to which we must immediate
ly look forward.
1--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 of the
present calendar year, whose account
I'M will
closed. We cannot get increased
taxes unless the country knows what
they are to be and practices the
necessary economy to make them
available.
"Definiteness, early definiteness as
to what it's tasks are to be is abso-
lutely necessary for the successful ad-
ministration of the treasury; it can
not frame fair and workable regula-
tions in haste; and it must frame it's
regulations in haste if it is not to
know it's exact task until the very eve
of it's performance. The present tax
laws are marred, moreover, by in
equities which ought to be remedied.
IndispUtable facts, every one; and we
cannot alter or blink them. To state
them is argument enough.
Warns Against Speculation and Waste.
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-
Guce inflatiOnS and eXtravagances
which presently make the whole eco
nomic structure questionable and in
secure and the very basis OF creolt
is cut away. Only fair, equitably dls-
tributed taxation of the widest Incl
dence and drawing chiefly from the
sources which would be likely to de-
moralize credit by their very abund-
ance, can prevent initiation and keep
our industrial system free of specula-
ton and waste.
I'VE shall naturally turn, therefore,
I suppose, to war profits and incomes
and luXuries 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. 1t would
be manifestly unfair to wait until the
early months of 1919 to say what
they are to be. 1t might be difficult,
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 anticipate
them 1t must use the money they
are to produce before it is due. 1t
must sell short time certificates OF
Indebtedness.
"In the autumn, a much larger sale
of long time bonds must be effected
than has yet been attempted. What
are the bankers to think of the GER
tificates if they do not certainly know
where the money is to come from
which is to take them up? And how
are investors to approach the pur-
chase of bonds with any sort of con-
fidence or knowledge of their own af-
fairs if they do not know what taxes
they are to pay and what economies
and adjustments of their business