The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1920-03-02

10 Cash in the Game.
No Cash, No Business.
The Dust Settles.
Organized Money on Top.
By ARTHUR BRISBANE.

The shortage Of money worries
the country. Printing presses have
been turning out nice fresh money
by the hundreds of millions since
the war started, therefore the
shortage puzzles people, but 1t
need not.
Otto H. Kahn, an able young
banker, who has solved his indi-
vidual currency problem, put the
fundamental fact in a half min
ute's telephone conversation yes
tsrday. Said he, "The Government,
which doesn't need credit. gathers
in all the available cash by its in
come tax system, squanders it, and
business men actually haven't the
ready money with which to develop
industry and carry on the work OF
reconstruction"
Suppose a gigantically rich man,
with unlimited credit and money,
had around him a lot Of small
farmers needing cash to buy seed,
agricultural machinery, fertilizer,
etc. Suppose that rich man, con-
trolling the little farmers. took
from them every dollar Of cash as
fast as they got it, and used it in
his business, leaving them with no
cash and little credit, how do you
think they would prosper?
That IS what happens in the
United States. The Government
sends its agents collecting as in
come tax practically all the ready
cash, and often more. If a con-
cern makes % per cent in the year,
not more than 10 per cent is ac-
tual cash, the rest goes into in
creased plant, deferred payments,
etc. But of the 25 per cent, half
or nearly half must go to the Gov
ernment in actual cash. IF you
haven't got it, borrow it."
Should the income tax be done
away with or cut down? BY no
means. 1t is the fairest tax, the
absolutely just tax. 1t will re-
main.
Should taxes be laid alike on big
and little incomes? By no means.
The load should be put on backs
able to carry it. The rich man can
carry the load; he receives greater
insurance and protection from
Government than the little man,
and should pay in proportion.
You cannot always trust pro-
tests or opinions of the very rich re-
garding income taxes, "for every
one is as God has made him, and
oftentimes a great deal worse"
as Sancho Panza says. A biz 0aEx
centage of income. stax ( payers
would gladly wriggle out on any
pretext
- But the Government is too earn
est a collector of ready cash.
Every year it puts its hand into
the industrial and commercial
game of the United States and
takes away practically all of the
Chips" or ready money with which
the game is run.
Business men are bidding for
credit at usurious rates of inter-
est. Men with money to lend are
not only permitted but invited to
profiteer.
Concerns absolutely sound wish
ing to increase their enterprises.
thus giving work and increasing
production, must go to the bank
like vagabond pawning his coat,
grateful for what he gets and will
ing to pay any rate demanded.
This system is forced upon the
financial institutions of the coun-
try; they do not want it.
If one great capitalist surround
ed by thousands of little men ar
ranged once or twice every year
to take all the cash they had, he
would ruin them in the end and
keep money tight all the time
The United States Government,
with wealth and credit unlimited,
surrounded by millions of little
men, spends millions annually COL
Letting all ready cash from the
little men, raking it in, squander-
ing it shamefully.
1t is for collective wisdom to
decide how the load of taxation can
be placed properly on wealth
through graduated income tax,
without criminal wastefulness by
the Government and without tax
ing from business men, big and
little, all the cash there is in the
business.
Until that problem is settled,
money will be tight, business bad,
and things getting worse.
Private owners have their rail-
roads back. The Government,
which means you and the other
taxpayers, paid full dividends to
the private owners while the Gov
eminent held the roads. The tax
payers carried the roads through
q period when the owners couldn't
possibly have borrowed money,
could not have solved their finan-
cial or labor problem, and when,
without the Governments support,