People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1895 — THE INCOME TAX DECISION [ARTICLE]

THE INCOME TAX DECISION

The Supreme Court upon rehearing before the full bench has declared the entire income tax law as a whole to be unconstitutional and void. Five of the judges. Fuller, democrat, Illinois; Field, democrat, California; Gray, republican. Massachusetts; Brewer, repuolican, Kansas, and Shiras, republican, Pennsylvania, were against the law. Four of them. Harlan, republican. Kentucky: White, democrat, Louisiana; Brown, republican, Michigan, and Jackson, democrat, Tennessee, were for the law. No decision of the court has ever disturbed the whole country as this one. and it opens questions that are far beyond the lines within which the taxes for the support of the general government may be raised. The constitution prohibits any direct tax other than a sum to be laid upon the several states in proportion to population. The majority of the court reasons that 1. A tax upon land is a direct tax and therefore a taxon rents or incomes is a direct tax. 2. A tax upon personal prop erty. or on the income of personal property is a direct tax. 3. All the income tax being laid upon the real or personal property therefore it is unconstitutional and void.

If a lavman were permitted to argue before this august body o F irresponsible autocrats, it miszht be asked what kind of property did the framers of the Constitution have in mind as legitimate sources of revenue? Does real

estate come in at the doors of the custom house, or are the bales of imported goods not personal property? Is not tobacco the product of the land, and are not beer and spirits personal property? But this decision is not a mere matter of strict legal interpretation. The American people take but little interest in courts whose opinions are confined to the constructive meaning of established laws. If this were all the power herein exercised the intense feeling now shaking the entire country would noi-havebeen aroused. It is the awful magnitude of a judicial power over-topping the representatives of the people in congress assembled making and unmaking laws, that begets consternation and rings out alarm. The income tax is a very old form of raising revenue. All nations have exercised this power from time immemorial. It is now done in England and in Europe. It has been done heretofore by the United Ststes both in time of war and in time of peace. It is not true that it is wholly a populistic measure, as it was passed by congress and signed and approved by Grover Cleveland. It is not true that it is a socialistic measure begotten in hatred of rich men. and brought forward to invidiously over tax the successful business man. It is not true that it is unpopular any chore than all taxes are likely to be unpopular with the one who has to pay th°m. It is a ques-' tion of popularity; the greut mass o f the people will approve ‘ the principle that those who| draw large sums of money, as'

salaries, rents, dividents and interest. should, and of a right ought to be made to pay proportionately to the expense of government in protecting their persons and incomes. But these are the very men who have combined to secure this decision. And they have succeeded by the change of the vote of one man. Within one month influences were brought to bear on Judge Shiras by which he overturns himself, four other members of the Supreme Court, the legislative dcpartmentof the government, and the representative character of this republic. Can any man doubt that this Supreme Court decision will in some way be overruled by the sovereign people. Sound Money.