Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1917 — HOW WILL IT BE RAISED? [ARTICLE]

HOW WILL IT BE RAISED?

In discussing the question of raising the enormoqs amounts of revenue necessary even during the coming twelve months, an exchange, after demonstrating the utter impossibility of raising the vast amount by taxation, and the Corresponding necessity of resorting to bond issues, concludes as follows: “In a sentence unless the big loans are balanced with heavy taxes upon those who are making money out of the war, we will rapidly and inevitably reach a state of industrial and, social chaos.” ' . The conclusion is. inevitable to the candid person who ’ will give the question unbiased thought. Based on the probability of a need of from fifteen to twenty billion dollars by this time next summer, the demand would mean from S6OO to $750 for each of the twenty million families that make up the nation. It can be seen at a glance that this can never be even approximately distributed among /■ the masses. Possibly a few more billions may be secured through popular subscription, but the great bulk of the required means must come, as out contemporaty suggests, from/ those who are making money out of the (war. If the war continues for even two years longer there will be fortunes made that will "dwarf any the world itas yet seen, provided business is allowed to take its hitherto uninterrupted course. While it is true we will spend prodigious amounts, it is equally true that wo will rriake fabulous amounts. The- ■ allied nations are practically at our

mercy for food and other supplies. Huge revenues are constantly coming' from that source. Not a dollar’s worth of any commodity that can be used by man need go to waste in the United States for want of a foreign market. It is up to the government to correctly analyze the situation ana place the burdens of taxation to. meet these great national expepdi-. tures upon the sholders of those who benefit by war prices. Will our law makers arise to the occasion and make an equitable adjustment of these burdens? Along with some very common, we hare some really good timber in our national legislature, and it is to be hoped that this material will insi t upon a reasonable and just basis for working out this momentous question.