Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 July 1909 — WEALTHY HIT BY ROOSEVELT [ARTICLE]

WEALTHY HIT BY ROOSEVELT

Former President Favors Tax Upon Incomes. SUGGESTS A GRADED LEVY “It Would Be a Particularly Good Thing if the Tax Bore Heaviest on Absentees,” Concluded the Fordier President—Greed Is Scored and the Proposed Restrictive Measure Is Referred to as “Singularly Wise and Unobjectionable Tax.”

New York, July 16. —“It is to be wished that some of those who preach and practice a gospel of mere materialism and greed and who speak as If the heaping up of wealth by the community or by the individual was in itself the be-all and end-all of life would learn front the most widely read and oldest of books that true wisdom which teaches that it is well to have neither great poverty nor great itches.” This admonition by Theodore Roosevelt forms part of an article which is published in the Outing - under the title: “Give Me Neither Poverty Nor Riches.”

“The movement which has become so strong during the last few years to secure on behalf of the nation both an adequate supervision of and an effective taxation of vast fortunes, so far as their business use is concerned, is a healthy movement,” continues the former president. “Il aims to replace sullen discontent, restless pessimism and evil preparation for revolution by an aggressive, healthy determination to get to the bottom of our troubles and remedy them. “The multimillionaire is not per se a healthy development in this country. If his fortune rests on a basis of wrongdoing he is a far more dangerous criminal than any of the ordinary types of criminals can possibly be. “If his fortune is the result of great service rendered, well ana good; he deserves respect and reward for such service—although we must remember te pay our homage to the service itself and not to the fortune which is the mere reward of the service, but when this foi tune is passed on to some one else who has not rendered the servicq, then the nation should impose a heavily graded progressive inheritance tax, a singularly wise and unobjectionable kind of tax. * "It would be a particularly good thing if the tax bore heavily on absentees.”