The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-08-09

on the transportation difficulties of the
country. 81
With respect to prohibition, Governor
Cox called attention to the oath of of
fee which president takes on being in
augurated, namely Ito preserve, protect
and defend the constitution of the United
States and added that the public Of
fetal who fails to enforce the law il AN
enemy both to the constitution and TO
the American principle of majority rule. 7
He plainly left the inference that as long
as there was an 18th amendment forbid
ding the manufaetafe 1of intoxicating bey-
erages, he would enforce the constitution.
| Of course the whole wet and dry argu-
ment ranges about the question of how
much alcohol is Intoxicating and if con-
! gross passed a law specifying four per
! cent as the limit, it would take decision
/ ly the supreme court to say the law was
unt Institutional and in the interval be-
| fore the decision was rendered the execu-
tive branch of the government would
simply he guided by the action of con-
crc-a 50 Mr. Cox showed how he as
/ an executive could neither nullify nor
modify the constitution or the laws of
lcongt S.. He didn't say of course that
| If congress should pass a law permitting
| light wires aud beer he would veto that
| law. This still gives the so-called liberal
| ization clcr'crts an opportunity to ag-
! itate 70" law permitting light wines and
beer for home consumptlon
| Perhaps the most interesting part of
Governor CoX's speech was his proposal
to reduce to a initnim1m all war taxes on
the incomes of wage earners, salaried
/ and professional people, agricultural pro-
| :, nj small csrYfsfa 10 SlipppS4
ted that instead OF an excess profits tax,
there be placed a small tax of about one
and one-half per cent on the total of the
business of every going concern. mas
much as practically all other taxes would
| be removed, Governor Cox believes the
small tax ON gross business would scarcely
| be felt especially by big business which
has been accused OF, transferring as much
as 10 per cent to the consumer because OF
the inequality of the excess profits tax.
| Senator Harding considered seriously
| the same suggestion of sales tax but was
dissuaded from putting it in his speech
of acceptance by some of his advisers who
/ contended that the same tax in other
i countries had not nrnved economically
sound 1t is true, however, that for
the last year, a steady campaign has been
/ carried or by business men to have the
| sales tax substituted for the excess pro-
fits tax and that sentiment in the Re
publican congress was favorable to the
idea but certain of the political leaders
feared it might he a mistake to revise
the tax laws on the eve of a presidential
election. For this same forbearance, Gov
| crnor Cox takes the Republican party TO
task. arguing that although the Republi-
cans have had control of both houses Of
/ congress since the war they have done
1 nothing to modify the irksome tax laws
j Governor Cox discussed free speech and
labor aud employment problems with the
same sort OF directness contending, for
| instance. that too many employers wan.
| to see the government use the bayonet
to nut down strikes.
/ The Democratic nominee didn't have
the fine weather for the notification cere-
| monies that his Republican 1ival had
three weeks ago. as il began raining early.
This gave the dav 4 "Wetfess'' that SOME
/ cf the Democratic wags from New Jersey
! thought appropriate for the occasion.
| The mysterious paragraph which Gov.
! Cox intended to insert in his sneech at
| tho last moment was withheld The gov
i ernor was nersuaded that it might de
tract from his speech in divertino att"n-
ton from the many important issues dis
/ ctlssad therein