Evening star., 1932-03-13
''DEMAGOGUES CLUB" ASSAILED /
FOR SHIPPING AT TAX BILLS
HuddIeston Wins Applause by
Attack on Group in Which
He Admits Membership.
Says Passage of Measures
Essential to Balance Budg-
ct and Restore Credit.

With biting sarcasm Representative
George Huddleston, Democrat, OF Ala
! bama, Yesterday attacked the 'Dema-
+ gogueS Club of the House. which he
said is now opposing the House ways
! and Means Committee tax bill ana
| particularly the manufacturers sa'2s
! tax.
The Alabama member, Progressive
! Democrat and himself frequently
labelled a deme gogue by his colleagues,
! lashed the opponents of the bill With
out mercy, charging that they were
considering not the welfare Of the
country but how to win votes for them
selves in the coming elections.
And when he had completed his eX-
coriation of the tax bill snipers the
members rose and cheered him. Indeed,
his address was declared by supporters
of the bill to have been Of great assist
ance in mastering votes and in pre-
venting the loss of votes of members
who have been 'wobbling."
Cites Need of Balancing Budget.
Mr Huddleston based his support of
the tax bill and the manufacturers
tax on the vital need of balancing
the Governments budget and restor-
ing the credit of the Nation.
Il suppose" he said, men will say
oh, We can repudiate the public debt.
Yes we can demclish the Constitution,
we can have political revolution. We
can play he'll generally, But show me
the man who is willing to contemplate
the full consequences which l have
pointed out without taking some toll.
I'VE have to balance the budget The
deficit, although a Republican deficit,
is our deficit, too. I have heard in the
Demagogues Club this talk about it
being a Republican deficit and let the
Republicans worry about it, and it is
Republican deficit, but this is not a
Republican country. It is my country
and it is yours.
Recalls Past Sales Tax.
Taxes are bad and sales taxes are
particularly bad They are levied upon
poverty and not upon wealth. They
are levied upon mans needs and not
upon his ability to pay. They violate
every fundamental of taxation, but
there is nothing new in the proposal to
levy a sales tax. We have had a sales
tax ever since 1867; sales tax on to-
bacco, a necessary Of life a thing
which even the conmonest and most
ignorant man uses.
I'm that choice selection of fine
spirits that meets daily in the Demo-
cratic cloak room, known in the YER
nacular as the Demagogues' Club, of
which I am one of the oldest and most
consistent members, we have had fire.
quent discussions in the last few days
about this bill Our slogan is Safety
First and living up to that slogan we
have no difficulty whatever in decid-
ing what is the vote to cast on this
bill, particularly as to the sales tax
feature of the bill.
I'VE have several sections of that
club. Here Is our farm section. They
are willing to vote for anything as long
as it does not take anything from their
constituents, but which gives them
something all the time"
Assails Farm Group of Club.
Referring to the farm section of the
"cluh." he said:
"You took $500, o,ooo, 900 of the peo-
pies money belonging to all the peo-
pie and you put it in the hands of
board to juggle the market, TO buy, to
sell, to organize, to incorporate and to
manipulate the prices of farm prod
ucts for the sole purpose of raising the
price to every man, woman and child
in the United States and now you
holler I will not put on sales tax,
yet you levied sales tax which failed
You did your best to levy a sales tax
for the benefit of the farmers the pro-
ducers of just a few farm products"
Then we have our oil friends. They
say, For Gods sake do not vote a
sales tax on the people, but vote duty,
or an excise tax, which is the same
thing, and lift the price of oil coming
into this country, so that our wells can
reopen and so we can go ahead and
extort more out of the people Of the
country, the consumers
Then we have our beer group. They
say. We are unalterably opposed to a
sales tax on the neceSsaries of life.
Then they turn around and say beer is
a necessary of life, and we want you to
put in this bill provision which will
levy a tax on beer. OF course, they
want that done on the theory that they
do not expect a poor man to drink any
beer, but that the beer tax is going to
come out Of the rich.
Soldiers Group Gets Wallop.
Here is our soldier group. They are
one of the biggest groups we have. Let
me say IN passing that some OF us pe-
long to all of these groups and some
Of us just demagogue generally on
anything that happens to come along.
But here is the soldier group of the
Demagogue Club. They are not willing
to vote for sales tax, which will put
money into the Treasury but they arc
willing to take money out of the Treas
ury and give it to the soldiers. They
are not willing to take $500 900, 900 from
all the people of the country, as pro-
vided bv this sales tax, vet they are
raring to take $1,000, 100000 of the
peoples money and distribute it among
the soldiers
Let me say I am going to pay the
expenses Of my next campaign out OF
my own pocket and not out Of the
public treasury.
There is g whole lot of this kind of