The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1920-05-21
LET WAR BILLIONS PAY THE
WAR COST
An Article Signed by Senator Capper,
in Capper's Weekly


The war that made $4,000 American
milliOnaires, rewarded siXty-seven OF
them with three billions OF war profits
Consequently l know no more just
and equitable act this nation can per-
form than to compel these same ex-
cess profit and stock dividend bene-
ficiaries to do their belated bit and
long-shir1ed war duty by requiring
them to pay the proposed soldier bon
u.s. or large part of it. At the same
time | know they won't do it unless
legislation compels it.
There was loud applause in the
United States Chamber of Commerce
the other day when a resolution de-
nounced the bonus for soldiers and
suggested instead generous treat
ment for all disabled and sick
amount not specified.
Another suggestion which had
earnest support was that some way
he found to avoid giving money TO
the soldiers at all.
Big business wants to keep all the
money it suffered. died and bled for
during the war but has no objection
at all to the people paving the bonus
by means of one percent sale tax,
with money at this time
| think this is about the worst at
tack of yellow jaundice l ever
heard of.
This proposed sale tax would pro
duce about 400 millions of the nearly
two billion bonus fund that will be
required and would cost the people
about thee times the money it would
raise.
1t would work this way: a package
of coffee, for instance, passes through
four or five different hands before it
reaches the consumer. The producer.
importer, and every middleman would
pay the tax and each would add it to
his sale price Accordingly by the
time the coffee reached the consumer
the bonus tax on it would amount to
several cents, and the same thing
would be true of other commodities.
The sale tax would only further in
crease our national diseaSe-high
prices.
/ believe we shall be able to defeat
this sale tax scheme notwithstanding
the powerful influence behind it, and
it may all be settled before these COM
ments get into print
At the present moment 5000 big
firms and corporations are propagan-
dizing the United States and Congress
in behalf of the Ralston-Nolan bill to
take a billion of war taxes off big
business and big profits, and put it
on land in the form of one percent
tax. And this country never was in
greater need of homecoming farmers.
Their circulars say why compel
manufacturers and business men
generally to pay these unjust and
injurious taxes?''
Well, let's see. Here are a few
things the people of these United
States must pay for during this year:
A billion and half dollars more
than last year for sugar
A billion dollars more for coal.
A billion dollars more for lumber.
Ditto for shoes, ditto for clothing and
ditto for about everything else.
Also a billion dollars or more in in
creased freight rates.
And four to six billion dollars for the
national budget if appropriations are
cut to the bone.
Then add to these billions a just
debt of billion and half for sol
dier's bonus unless the stock dividend
beneficiaries and big war profiteers
are permitted to contribute this last
item and are compelled by law to do
so. And how much peace and quiet
may we expect in the ranks of indus
try?
Besides these various and sundry
billions and millions, which must
come, on the average out of little
and well-flattened pocketbooks, the
people are paying the interest and a
part of the principle of a thirty-bil-
lion war mortage they assumed. most
of which money went into the Golfers
of American industries and big bust
ness at the highest rate of profit
ever known. along with some thou
sands of millions of other war profits
from Europe.
And big business which did not
fight, did not risk or sacrifice any,
thing; big business that was r"i7
double and quardruple and cost-plus
for everything it did during or aftec
the war, has the gall to speak of it's
share of the national burden as "un-
just and injurious taxes and would
have them laid on land
Have all the brains supposed to be
behind these money bags turned to
stomach?
We should let no taX-dodging billions
and no war-and-peace protitenr
step or evade the duty each owes this
nation end the men who so unselfish
iy fought for it and them, nor will
they il can help it.
TILE uOpo IINI0N