The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1922-05-05

know most of the science of finance
do not value Mr.. Bryan's opinions on
complicated financial questions, and
in this / am disposed to concur.
One physician might be the better
to diagnose a malady. while another
might be the better to prescribe for
it's cure.
The superb and dauntless Ney ex-
celled only in the charge, and not in
strategy; the sunken road at Water
loo was overlooked, and the lilies of
France were trailed in the dust.
Second: Mr. Bryan, with millions of
votes at his back, had the only large
organized force which operated to
compel the adoption of the income
tax amendment to the federal consti-
tuition.
At that time none thought of any
chance for the cataclysm of world
war; none thought that his children
would ever see the federal govern
ment spend thirty billions in two
years; none, in his widest flights of
imagination, then dreamed that his
sons would live to see the federal
government extract from the citizens
of our several states in year of
peace the immense sum of four bill
lions of money, much less to see that
sum realized through income taxes
alone.
The principle of taxing incomes is
in entire harmony with social justice
and our traditions, but certainly no
one who knows anything of the his
tory of the democratic party, or of
Jefferson, or Jackson, it's founders,
will try to find aught in the history of
that party, or of these celebrated men
which would hint at justification for
using any federal powers of taxation
to extend the functions of our federal
government to such an extent as to
touch, dominate and control every
walk of life
None can find anything in the en-
tire history of democracy, indeed,
naught in the history of our nation,
to justify. or furnish warrant, for u.s.
ing, under any guise or pretext,, the
powers of federal taxation as an en-
gine to weaken in material way the.
several states in the discharge of their
well defined duties.
This is the present effect of the
enormous levies carried in the feder-
al income tax law
The power to tax is the power to de-
stroy; not alone wealth, but social or
der, and all by which social order is
maintained, chief among them social
justice, morality, and even religion it
self may be imperiled through excess
es and abuses in taxation. All this is
now threatened in the trend of doings
in Washington.
That you may favor the principle of
taxing lands does not indicate that
you have no choice in the methods of
enforcement, or the amount of the
levies.
- 1t is within the memory of all of us
that in 1910, 1911 and 1912, when our
people gave their approval to federal
taxation OF incomes, and adopted the
constitutional amendment, all were
told that it would be used TO lessen
the tax load on production and pro-
ductive enterprises. So we, the peo-
pie, have been disappointed in our
hopes. In war times much blunder-
ing and waste must be tolerated, for
it is inevitable, but we have been at
peace for three years, yet the mania
to swell taxation is still rife in Wash
ington.
Some sense of justice impels, too,
the statement that in my opinion the
rates fixed by the democratic party
in the income tax law prior to the
war, viz: for the years 1913, 1914,
1915 and 1916 were far in excess of
any rates which can be carried as a
permanent policy with profit to the ma
tion. As permanent policy such
high rates do not profit the govern
ment, for they seldom catch much of
the income of the immensely rich, or
inactive money lender. while expert
ence now shows that they bear most
heavily on comparatively poor men
In productive rural enterprises, where
all the rewards of life time of hard
work happen to come in one or two
years of good fortune As is the case
with most miners, oil operators. and
the pioneers in the development of
America, many such, since 1913, who
were heavily in debt after many years
OF toll have made fair fortunes only
to divide such fortunes between the
government and their creditors. Many
such cases are so fragrant and dis
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