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to disturb the bee as long as it was gathering honey
for the general hive. Let the millionaire and would
be millionaire alone, and encourage them to work
hard, for their equals do not exist is contributing
members during their active lives.
It is clearly at the rich man's death that the
Community should exact a large share of estate, a
graduated share, increasing in proportion to its
extent. It should be paid over to the Government
and applied to the service of the people, the silent
but contributive partner from whom it has been so
largely derived.
The Negative
By Moses E. Clapp
IF the present pace of increasing expenditures is
to be kept up, the people of this country in
national, state, and municipal matters have
to face the problem of increased revenue. This
could be avoided if public expenditures could be
treated in anything like a businesslike way; but
where is the man who would have the courage to
seek the reform of present conditions by lessening
public expenditures?
There are two reasons for this condition. We
have grown so great as a nation, the ramifications
of our Government are so varied, and the administra
tive agencies so vast, that it is practically impossible
to apply .1 personal supervision to the ordinary
expenditures Great departments have grown up
in which are buried great bureaus whose financial
operations can be scrutinized only by personal super
vision, which it is impossible to secure
Another reason why we cannot decrease, but find
constant increase of expenditure inevitable, is the
wide spread feeling that every dollar wrung from
the public treasury for local disbursement is so much
wrung from a separate identity, the people failing
to realize that every dollar thus secured from the
public treasury must first be obtained in some way
ur other from the taxpayer This feeling has grown,
until the value of a man's services in the national
Congress or a State Legislature is too often measured
by his ability to secure appropriations for local
expenditure.
The Problem of Revenue
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ARCHIVES OF THE CONFEDERACY
By G. M. JACOBS
IS the entire history of diplomacy there is nothing
that, in pathos anil human interest, exceeds
the efforts of the Confederate States • ■: America
to secure recognition as a member of the family of
nations, to obtain the means with which to establish
and maintain an army anil a navy. and to bring
about foreign intervention. It is not generally
known that the papers setting forth these efforts are
the property <>t' the United States Government, and
arc among the most valuable of its manuscript
archives.
In the language of Jefferson Davis, "When a
portion <>t the States withdrew from the compact
[the Union] and formed a new one under the name
nf the Confederate States, they had made such
organic changes in their Constitution as to
require official notice in compliance with the
usages of nations." To give and obtain this
official notice were appointed the joint com*
missioners sent abroad early in 1862; but, in
all matters relating to the American conflict,
the Powers of Kurope decided to leave the
initiative to England and France, as they
had the ]:'.:■■ interests involved in it." Those
Governments signified their intention to confine
themselves to the. self evident fait of the existence
of a war, and to maintain a strict neutrality during
its progress. Thus, from the first year of the war
until its close, the Confederacy was recognized
merely as a belligerent Power,
even Russia deciding that in
tervention would have the
opposite of the desired effect.
Muring the progress of the
war, the 1 ■ mdence of the
State Department; kept pro
foundly secret, set forth the
ineffectual attempts of tin- Con
federate envoys to accomplish
their mission.
Just fore the fall of Rich-
SUNDAY MAGAZINE FOR MARCH 17. 1907
placency, or perhaps it might more properly be
said to demand profligacy in national expenditure
along the line of local distribution, is that under
the present system the tax is paid unconsciously.
On the other hand, an income tax would bring home
to the taxpayer the possible realization that money
secured from the public treasury was not secured
from some district identity, but was in fact simply
the taxpayers' money collected and distributed;
and if an income tax were practicable, this in itself
would be a very strong reason in favor of re»orting
to it. Hut the difficulty with the income tax is
that probably no system of taxation could be
devised under which those best able to pay the tax
would lnt so sure of early and finally escaping the
burden.
When the taxpayer witnesses the unbusinesslike
methods of government, the constant multiplication
of officials, the extravagance of public expenditures,
and the inequality with which local expenditures are
distributed, he feels justified in resorting to almost
any extreme to avoid the contribution of his share
of taxation.
The Most Paternal Government
THIS indifference t
.!• • entuated h)
der ' I
probably :
Much of •
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mond, the most important of the Confederate
archives were removed from that city. The State
Department records—all except the secret ser
vice papers, which had been destroyed by Benja
min — were hidden in a barn in Virginia." Among
them were nearly all of the letters and des
patches of the commissioners in foreign coun
tries, up '" January i, 1865, thmigh a few des
patches had failed to reach Richmond. Later,
the papers were packed in four trunks, and trans
ferred from Richmond to Washington by their cus
todian,; Colonel John T. Pickett, who had "represented
the interests of the Confederacy in Mexico, and hid
contributed to the collection valuable and important
communications relating to the installation, by
France, of Maximilian upon the transitory imperial
throne of tiie first named country.
Air.:- indexing the papers, Colonel Picket I en-
The Affirmative
By Edward B. Whitney
IF everybody told the truth to the tax man, or if it
was easy to find out about everybody's priva*;.'
affairs, almost everybody would agree that some
kind of income tax was the fairest and best tax.
Some think that everybody should pay in pro
portion to his income, however great or' however
small, except that nothing should be taken from
an income so small that the loss would have to be
made up by charity. Others think that a tax :s
more 'uniform it it is proportioned to the hardship
that it causes, and therefore that a man's second
five thousand dollars should pay a higher rate than
his first. That was the principle of the graduated
income tax levied during our Civil War.
The objections to this tax are administrative in
character It is likely to be graduated according
to the honesty of the taxpayer. Nobody has yet
found out how to make everybody pay his fair
share. Practically it bears hardest on people of
moderate means who are earning their own support
The struggling doctor or lawyer or business rr..in
swears u\> his income to keep up his professional
reputation or his financial credit. People who !:
on their property swear their incomes down.
cross examine a man about where his rr.<>ne%' come"
from is orTensive, and often dues not elicit the trutl
It is doubtful whether more money is collected in
this way than would be if the man was asked
state only the total of his income, under the risk ■ i
a prosecution tor perjury, even perhaps only r
personal disgrace, it he was afterward prove'!
have misstated it.
Value of Self Respect
any man will pay some money r r
than be unpopular. Most will jay some i .
for self respect. In one small European State. Brerrca
I think, it is said that formerly there was a t
with a long neck in a public place, and onu- . ear
each citizen put his hand into the mouth >■: ■
on his honor to drop in the fair amount <■: his tax.
Afterward a scientific system was substitute : but
it did not result in collecting any more mo We
are unfortunately too big for the jar exj eri:
It is so hard to find out what a rum :.:.-.' • ...t
some foreign States tax him instead on • he
spends, believing that they can afford ' ::e
that part of his income which he s.ivcs | f
enjoying. That will come out sotr.e time
to get at what lie spends, they assume tha;
rent bears a certain ratio to his total ex- i
Hence, they assess him according to the rental
value of his resilience or residences. Thi ■ svsteia
is astonishingly fair as a general rule, ahi ugh :t
would be unfair to the borough of Mar.hr- . :. 1
might require a compensatory tax on baei
Whether without an amendment to the < ' ' >
tion Congress can enact any efficient irio
law is a question of doubt, as to which the
of the Supreme Court^ so far as applicable, .. in
conflict.
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