The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
Let it never be forgotten that a tax is but a
toll and can only be taken of something tangible. You cannot get
blood out of a ghost or wealth out of a paper evidence of
property. The blood must come from real veins and the tax must be
drawn from something tangible. It is a contravention of justice
and a violation of economic law to tax this man's property once
and that man's twice. That the one is rich and the other poor
does not mitigate the infamy--it is a fundamental principle of
this republic that all men shall be equal before the law. Some
years ago a howl was raised that reached high heaven that Jay
Gould was worth 50 millions and paid taxes on but 75 thousand.
Economic idiots gnawed a file because the ex-house-trap maker
objected to paying his taxes twice, and charging his patrons on
both the amount and the cost of collection. There are many
abnormal fortunes in this country, but confiscation through
taxation is not the proper remedy. If the government toll be an
ounce in the pound let it BE an ounce in the pound, whether the
citizen possess ten pounds or ten million. Let every citizen
contribute to the support of government in exact proportion to
his means. To exempt the man who makes $500 a year and place the
entire burden upon the man who earns $1,000 a year and upwards is
to make of the first a political pauper. The graduated income
tax, so-called is wrong to one class of citizens and an insult to
the other. Let us tax all property once and only once; but let us
see to it that unctuous old hypocrites like Rockefeller are not
permitted to rob the public--that they do not build collegiate
monuments to their own memory with other people's money.
* * *
AN EPISCOPALIAN MISTAKE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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