Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1933-12-21
HEAVIER TAXES ON
INHERITANCE


That we'll known statesman.
Senator George w. Norris from the
western plains of Nebraska, has
spoken again. This time against
the great Capitalization of wealth
and the harm that it does to gov
ernments and the individuals.
Senator Norris, 1t will be re-
membered, is the man who fought
for years to do away with the
lame duck sessions of Congress
the privilege of lawmakers to
take part in enacting new laws
after their defeat at the polls.
His efforts were crowned with
success. He also won a great bat
tie for the people when he put
over the Muscle Shoals project.
The Nebraska statesman assert
ed recently that selfish ambition to
accumulate money must be curbed
by law if civilization is to stand.
He recommends progressive taxes
on inheritance to re-distribute
wealth. shorter hours for labor,
and humanizing of the statute
books. In his address 1.-The New
Civilization" he said in part:
1--WE ought not only to shorten the
hours of labor but we ought to limit
the right of wealth to entail itself
from one generation to another. a
inheritance tax which
would make it impossible for the prop
erty of one generation to be passed
on intact to the people of succeeding
generation, would, without injury 10
any living soul, go far to bring us a
permanent remedy.
Such tax would be more easily
collected than any other with the
least burden ON anyone.
1.-The inheritance tax should allow
a liberal exemptiOn-an exemption
even large enough so that the bene-
ficiary might live the balance of his
life in luxury; and then it should be
increased by progressive steps so that
the residue of the fortune could be
passed back ito the people and thus
be returned to the government whose
laws made it possible for the fortune
to be acquired"
Senator Norris said he had no
against wealth as such, as
serting that many men had accumu-
lated property with perfect honesty
and without injustice or injury to fell
low men. But even these men, he
said, should not object to yielding
after death portion of their fortunes
to the government.
The Nebraska senator attacked men
of wealth who dodge just taxes, re-
ferring to recent disclosures
of the unreasonable power welded
and the wicked and inhuman way
in which these men have tried to
even the policies of our fed
eral government.
''They use their financial power not
only to increase their own wealth to
an unreasonable extent, but to avoid
the ordinary support of government
which they honestly owe." He de-
plored not so much the,-loss. of rev.
enue as the "degenerating and bane-
full influence" of their example to
others.
Such men," said Norris, do more
injury to the stability of our govern
mental institutions than the highway
robber who has the courage to commit
his crimes upon the public streets in
broad daylight.
"There is no inherent right in any
man to make any disposition of his
property after he is dead.
''The right to acquire property and
make unlimited profits is not a sacred
right
Both these rights are governed by
laws which must be changed to con-
form with changing economic condi-
tiOnS.
1.-THE factory owner, in replacing men
with machines, should share the in
creased profits with labor by increas-
ing wages and shortening hours of the
employees, and share with
by decreasing prices, bring
ing increased consumption thereby.
THE pathway of history is lined
with the tombstones of dead govern
ments because the people failed to
preserve the rights of man as against
the rights of property and to protect
the weak against the oppression of the