Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1898 — A Grave Problem. [ARTICLE]

A Grave Problem.

Chicago Inter Ocean. ‘ The address delivered at the Auditorium yesterday by ex-Presi-dent Harrison on “The Obligations of Wealth” was hardly an oration. It was an unimpassioned appeal to the well-to-do to pay their fair share of taxps. Such a subject, properly handled, gave little opportunity for oratorioal pyrotechnics. Occasionally the speaker gave rein to his imagination. The subject discussed is one of the gravest problems of the day. How to equalize taxation is a question that has thus far baffled inquiry. The ex-President did not propose in detail a system of reform in tax laws, but sought to arouse what he termed “a tax renaissance.” He based his appeal mainly upon the shortsightedness of and danger to society of letting things drift along in the old way. The danger is that the sense of injury will become so strong that ways will be found to exact more than is equitable. “To do justioe is the best safeguard against injustice.”

The nearest approach by a direct and practical suggestion was thrown out in a casual way. “Perhaps,” he said, “the state might declare and maintain an estoppel against the claim of any man or his heirs to property the ownership of which had been disclaimed in the tax returns.” Considering the high standing of General Harrison as a constitutional lawyer, such a suggestion as this from his lips means a great deal. He is not the man to drop a remark of such gravity, however casually, without having carefully considered the matter. In the recent argument before the Supreme Court of the United States of the inheritance tax Harrison wns retained to oppose the tax. If his suggestion should be carried out it would be much more drastio than the inheritance tax of this or any other State. If General Harrison will allow himself to be elected to the Legislature of Indiana and make a specialty of framing a revenue bill, ho might do the whole country a grent and highly patriotic service. During his six years in the Senate and four years in the White Houso ho was confronted with no more difficult and fundamental problem than this of state revenue reform. If he could lead in n genuine “tax renaissance” ho would rival John Quincy Adams in the achievement of a grent postpresidential reputation.