 | The Newspaper Writings of Susette La Flesche -- A Selected Edition |  |
Debating the Income Tax
American Nonconformist, June 7, 1894
It is funny how very popular the Populists are in the senate just at this time and what particular attention and deference is paid to them throughout the discussion now going on. It is quite the "fad" for a republican or democratic senator to say, in the course of his speech, "I wish to call my Populist friends' attention to these facts and figures." No wonder Senator Allen refrained from announcing what his vote would be on the tariff bill, and no wonder he succeeded in having his amendment putting all lumber on the free list passed as well as his amendment on barbed wire.[1] The vote stood: Yeas 35; nays 24. The farmers all over the country can be proud of such a senator.
Walsh of Georgia[2] made his maiden speech on the tariff bill. He is a good speaker. He favored the income tax and free silver, and gave Cleveland[3] two or three "puffs" during the course of the speech.
Sherman made an unusually elaborate speech on the tariff.[4] It took him three hours and his secretary sat by his side receiving the sheets of his speech one by one as he delivered them. Now I will put it to my readers, whether the speech of such a man is worth reporting, and I will state why I ask the question.
Senator Walsh, who spoke before Sherman , quoted from a speech delivered by Sherman in 1870, in which Sherman gave his opinion on the income tax as follows:
"I repeat that the maintenance of the income tax is an absolute necessity for any system of internal taxes. If the Senate and house should determine after full consideration to repeal the income tax I shall favor the repeal of all taxes upon consumption that bear upon the great masses of the people. I do not believe there is any such complaint about the income tax. If I had my own way I would retain the income tax at 5 per cent making such modifications as would afford the proper exemptions; I would maintain the income tax at 5 per cent on all incomes about $1,000, and then throw off these taxes upon consumption that do oppress the poor and do take dollars out of the coffers of the people who earn them by their daily work."
Yesterday Sherman attacked the income tax. He said it was a war tax and there was no necessity for it. It was a tax on classes. The idea of taxing a comparatively few because you can reach them and because they live in large cities was an act of agrarianism and injustice. If they legislated for classes in this country then the system would break down. All men were alike under the law and the same rule should apply to all. They had no right to tax a corporation because it was a corporation. When a tax was levied it was so much taken off the stockholder, and it was a matter of gross injustice. The English did those things better. They classified incomes carefully. The idea of taxing a savings bank was enough to make his blood boil. He was going to say for God's sake--he would say for the sake of humanity--do not attempt to tax corporations, who are the custodians, the depositories of the poor. Now which of these two statements of his are we to believe.
Pettigrew,[5] of South Dakota , made a rather odd speech on the tariff, but as usual with the silver men the latter half of it merged into the money question. I think at heart he really believes in free trade, but he kept insisting and trying to prove that protection and free silver must be combined together to bring prosperity to the country. How these western silver men do hang on to the their republicanism! It is hard work trying to reconcile logically two irreconcilable things. The senator believes in "protection" because that is republican, you know, but he says he would repeal all duty on sugar and binding twine. He warned democrats that "if this bill passes the farmers of the West may join with the South and do that which will injure them and ruin you, and collect the revenues to run this government by a tax on luxuries and an income tax."
Your threat of what "may" be done is exactly what "ought" to be done Senator Pettigrew. You say you favor having everything free which is the subject of a "trust." What article of nature or manufacture is there that isn't the subject of a "trust" or monopoly?
Peffer[6] is slowly educating the senate up to his own advanced position by his frequent and numerous resolutions. He introduced one the other day that a committee be appointed to consider the constitutionality of the government ownership of all the coal beds in the United States and the best way of accomplishing that object. I suppose the only way to get the senate used to advanced ideas is to do it slowly and gently by degrees, as it were, and these resolutions of Peffer's seem to be just the thing.
Notes
Senator William Vincent Allen was a Populist senator from Nebraska. The second session of the Fifty-Third Congress had taken up debate on protective tariffs when it convened on December 4, 1893. To address the economic woes of the Panic of 1893, President Cleveland had called for and obtained repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act but he also wanted tariffs lowered. The bitterness engendered over the silver issue made the debate long and tedious. The House passed the Wilson Bill, which placed raw materials such as iron ore, coal, lumber, wool, sugar and others on the free list, reduced duties on cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel products, silks, linens, and others, and replaced a bounty to domestic raw sugar productions which had been provided for by the McKinley Act. To make up for the lost revenue, the Wilson Bill placed a 2% tax on incomes of $4,000 or more. The Senate ultimately passed the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act, which included 634 amendments to the Wilson Bill, aimed at protecting favored goods and products. In reality it retained many of the protective tariffs of the McKinley Act and did little to reduce tariffs.
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