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fHE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA.. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter ol
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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What Helps the Consumer
Is Bound to Help Business.
The business philosophy of downward tarnff revis
ion is summed by the Kansas City Times in a single
terse sentence: "VVnatever uelps the consumer helps
those who supply the consumer.”
If the prosperity of the United States were de
pendent upon any one group of men or interests,
whose particular welfare would be a guarantee of the
common good, then the special favors which the high
tariff has granted might be defensible, if not praise
worthy. But the fact is that the prosperity of this
country depends upon the welfare of the average cit
izen—the average laborer, the average farmer and
merchant and business man, whatever his pursuit
may be. It is from these unknown and innumerable
little streams that the great tides of commerce gather
volume and flow freely onward with enriching
power. And so ,.ny system that burdens or hinders
iheir course is .nejfpedient as well as unjust.
The high protective tariff has been maintained
on the fallacious theory that the way to make the
nation prosperous is to tax the' rank and file of the
consumers for the benefit of a comparatively few spe
cial interests. The result has been prosperity of a
kind, no doubt; but not the kind of prosperity that
counts for national strength and progress. The im
portant thing, as President Wilson has so aptly
said, is not that the majority of the people shall be
permitted to share in the prosperity of a few but
that they shall be free to originate prosperity of
their own.
This is the great heritage of • business liberty
which a thorough downward revision of the tariff
wili vouchsafe. By' overthrowing monopiy, it will
open the way for individual.enterprise and initiative.
By lifting a tax from the income of the average man
and the average lamily, it will clear and quicken
the common channels of trade. The country awaits
the effect of the pehding tariff bill, which now
seems assuered of an early passage, not only with
confidence and equanamity but also with hope for
better times. “Speculative business of Wall Street,”
as the Times says, “may he as fearful now as it al
ways is when any change is coming. But you cannot
make merchants afraid of a condition that means
there will be more money to spend and more people
that have it to spend. Whatever helps the consumer,
helps those who supply the consumers.”
The Triumph of Georgia Tomatoes.
If recent developments continue, we shall soon be
talking of Georgia’s achievements rather than of her
possibilities in truck farming. A carload of tomatoes
grown near Tifton was sold in New York the other
day at the highest prices the market offered and in
competition, too, with large shipments from other
States where the truck industry has long been estab
lished. It was the high quality of the Georgia prod
ucts, say the commission men, that disposed of them
so easily and.on terms so profitable.
That is but one among scores of similar instances
showing the extraordinary success of truck farming
ing in this State. Planters who formerly devoted all
their land and labor to cotton have begun, somewhat
fearsomely at first, to experiment with food crops.
They find in most instances that the soil is ideally
suited to such .purposes and that the returns are not
only surer than those from a single crop but taken
the seasons through are also larger financially. This
movement has been going steadily forward for several
years, so that today we find in every part of the
State, and particularly in South Georgiy many
thriving truck farms whose owners are becoming
independent and are establishing new agricultural
standards.
Indeed, the truck farm is one of our most potent
influences for progress in every field of agriculture.
It makes possible an easy and striking application
of scientific and businesslike methods of .ruling.
It is a vital witness to the value of intensive culti
vation, of siuJ study and careful management,
riswi an offspring of agricultural education, it is
doing more perhaps than any similar agency to
bring the principles of such education into vide
use and to turn them to fruitful account.
Justice to Georgia Women.
The House of Representatives is t~ be congrat
ulated upon its good sense and fair play in granting
the use of its hall to the Georgia Woman Suffrage
Association for the opening session of the latter’s
State convention. A refusal of this request would
have been ungenerous and unjust. The ladies’ peti-
Uesi involved no question of the Legislature’s indore-
raent of the suffrage movement. Whether the mem
bers of the General Assembly sanction that cause or
oppose it, they could not have barred the State’s capi-
tol to so estimable a body of Georgia women without
stamping themselves as pettily ungracious, if not
positively churlish. The House has done well to re
trieve the previous action of the Senate, for little
minds and great commonwealths go ill together.
Georgia’s Opportunity In
The Anti-Malaria Fight.
The organization in Virginia of a society for the
study and prevention of malaria is said to be the
first step toward a nationwide campaign against this
tar-flung and costly disease. The movement has en
listed the support not only of physicians and health
officials but also ol business men who realize the
economic loss which malarial conditions entail. This
is a timely enterprise. If it is important to protect
a State’s crops against destructive insects, it is vastly
more so to protect • State’s people against a malady
that impairs their productive power and robs them
of life itself.
Organized effort can accomplish in this field what
• t has accomplished in the crusade against tubercu
losis. Education will be followed by prevention.
Communities will be awakened to the importance of
removing the sources of malaria and will
also be shown the means of doing so. It is ex
pected that the federal authorities will lend their as
sistance and that in time organizations similar to
that in Virginia will be formed throughout the
country; and when public interest m this problem is
,,nce thoroughly aroused we may be sure that it will
become effective.
The longest anu surest stride that Georgia couid
take toward cleansing its malarial districts would be
tne adoption of a syste matic plan of swamp drainage,
in this connection, it is interesting to note the testi-
— o;iy of our State geological survey:
"It is a well known fact, demonstrated by
the medical profession, that malarial diseases so
prevalent in sivamp lands are due to the bite of a
certain species of mosquitoes which almost in
variably abound in greater or lesjs numbers in
such places. The drainage of swamp lands de-
lroys the breeding places of these insects, ana as
(. result malaria, diseases disappear. The cen
sus of lifi'O gave the number of deaths from
malaria in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa for the
preceding year as fifty-two f ana five-tenths per
thousand of the total, while the census of 1890,
ivhen large areas of land had been drained, the
death rate due to malaria was only eight and
six-tenths per thousand. For the east coast lands
of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, the
death rate from malaria in 1810 was sixty-six
and two-tenths per thousand and in the same
State’s in 1890 the rate ivas sixty-one and seven-
tenths per thousand. These figures show that.
malarial conditions did not materially change
in the three last-named States during the two
decades, which is accounted for in large measure,
by the lack of drainage improvement. The facts
brought out in the comparison of these two
groups of States•—in one of which drainage had
been carried on, to a large extent, and in the
other but little or no drainage ivas attempted—
demonstrate conclusively that malaria depends
largely on swamp conditions, which can be re
moved by drainage."
The bill now pending in the Legislature, provid
ing for the appropriation of five thousand dollars
annually for a period of five years in order that
Georgia may secure a like sum from the federal gov
ernment for the reclamation of its swamp and over
flow lands is a measure of vital importance to the
sanitary as ^well as agricultural and economic, inter
ests of-the State. It offers a. practical and far-reach
ing means of placing our commonwealth in the fore
rank of the nationwide campaign now marshaling
against malaria. «
In Washington these days they do violence to a
precedent every now and then.
A Problem for the Moralists.
The announcement that the the receipts of the
Government’s “conscience money” fund were less for
the fiscal year recently ended titan ever before has
bestirred the moralists to a lively debate, highly
hopeful on one side but on the other keenly cynical.
For the past century, the federal authorities have
been receiving through anonymous communications
divers sums of money from soul-stricken persons who
in one way or another had cheated or pilfered the
Government. The amounts were sometimes con
siderable, though mostly small, and some
times they were in restitution for wrongs done
twenty or thirty years before. The average fund
thus received has been about four thousand dollars a
twelvemonth; in 1902 it approached thirty-six thou
sand dollars.
But for the year ended June the thirteenth last,
it amounted to only two thousand, eight hundred and
fourteen dollars. How is this marked fall-
ing-off to be explained? “Why simply on the ground
that we are growing honester,” say the optimists.
“Not at all,” retort the pessimists; “it merely means
that we are growing more reticent of our thefts.”
Whether we have fewer larcenies or fewer con
fessions, tender consciences to begin with or tougher
consciences in the end is a question which each will
answer largely according to his particular view of
Obedience to Law Is Liberty
By Dr. Frank Crane
Our best bow to Mr. Bonar Law and his gang of
rowdies in the British parliament, and to the dynamit
ers who recently contaminated the nutty November
air at Indianapolis with their
malodorous confessions; also to
Lieutenant Becker, and to the
militant suffragettes ol’ England.
Gentlemen and ladies, you are
all of a piece. You are the kind
that go after what you want,
and, if you can’t get it any oth
er way, you smash things. You
are ready to fight,' ready to kill,
ready to do anything but play the
game according to the rules, and
take your medicine like men
when you are beaten.
We would not insinuate any
thing, or hurt your feelings, but
would say that if some one would
gently lead you to the edge of
the earth and push you off we
should feel better. We, the peo
ple, the mix of rich and poor, millionaires, bricklay
ers, storekeepers, society leaders, hired girls and
Woodrow Wilson, are struggling ateng trying to evolve.
We know’ social conditions are not/yet ideal, and there
is some talk of the train being off the track.
Some of us are’ Socialists, some are single-taxers,
and there are Republicans, Democrats, Bull Moosers,
Prohibitionists, besides a number of anythingarians,
and not a few who are plain crazy.
Each one of us wants to win. Each is convinced
he ought to be it, and have things served on him on
a gold platter. Each believes his particular program
would solve the problems of mankind in a few min
utes, if the unbelievers were not so pig-headed.
But—
But, in this great game of getting on we are
trying to play fair. We aim to be good sports, and
the definition of a good .port is “a good loser.”
Violence, whether throwing books at the first lord
of the admiralty in parliament, or setting nitro-glyce-
rin infernal machines under buildings, or murdering
one of your own companions you don’t seem to care
for; that w e will not stand. '
The English people are the freest on earth, from the
chin up. The English race not only stands for free
dom; it stands for law.
On the court house at Worcester, Mass., is the
motto of our civilization; read, mark, learn and in
wardly digest it, if you please; it is this:
4 The Obediencj to Law Ts Liberty.”
Our institutions are such that any man or party
can change them and have his will with us, provided
he can persuade a permanent majority to believe with
him. If you choose you can have the constitution
amended so that only red-headed men can be sena
tors; all 3 r ou have to do is to get enough people to
agree with you.
But don’t you be in a hurry. Don’t go to shooting
up the town, assassinating presidents, dynamiting ob
durate plutocrats, o,r making a rough house at West
minster. *
We are ready to try any experiment. But in the
language cf the gentleman from Missouri, “you’ve got
to show us.”
We would remonstrate with you, all of you who
are impetuous to have your own way, either in per
sonal aggrandizement or in the salvation of society;
we would gently remonstrate with you, as the cow
boy In Wichita, in the early days, remonstrated with
the angry tenderfoot who pulled a silver-plated thir
ty-two and gave signs of trouble: .Be careful, son.
Don’t you let that pop-gun off around here. You’re
liable to git hurt. This here community is purty
tollable partickler.”
Sir Isaac Newton's
Home for Sale
A notice board outside the plain and unpretentious
building on the east side of St. Martin’s street, imme
diately to the south of Leicester square, indicates
that the premises are for sale.
Externally there is nothing attractive about the
building, but the title, Newton 1 House, gives some in
dication of its historic interest;
After his removal from Jermyn street, further west,
Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest English mathematician
of his day, master of the mind and president of the
Royal society, lived there for the last seventeen years
of his life.
Though now dingy and dreary. St. Martin’s street
in 1710 was sufficiently attractive and exclusive to
have among its residents ambassadors and high gov
ernment officials, while Sir Isaac’s entertainments
drew to his house all the leaders of the scientifio
world of the day.
Many amusing anecdotes are told of Sir Isaac New
ton during his residence in St. Martin’s street. One of
the best concerns Dr. Stukely, the most famous an
tiquary of his day, who called on Sir Isaac by ap
pointment. The servant who opened the door said
that Sir Isaac was in his study and must not be dis
turbed. Dr. Stukely sat down to wait for the great
mathematician, as it was near his hour for dining, and
by and by a boiled chicken under a cover was brought
in for dinner.
An hour passed and Sir Isaac did not appear. The
hungry and philosophic antiquary calmly devoured the
fowl, and, replacing the cover on the empty dish, re
quested the servant to get another bird prepared for
his master. Before the dish was ready Sir Isaa^
came down from his study, and apologizing for his
dilatoriness, said: “Give me leave to take my short
dinner and I shall be at your service. I am fatigued
and faint.” Removing the cover and discovering the
empty dish, he observed to Stukely with ^a smile:
“See what we studious people are; I forgot that I had
dined.”
It may have been courtesy, or it may have been
forgetfulness.
The house is now given over entirely to business
OU/^TRY’
Awp TlMELTf
OMl T0PIC5
dwOCTEP W21RS.VH3TELTO/1
WHAT WE HAVE GAINED SINCE 1776, AND WHAT
WE DOSE.
We begun as a republic—with modest opportuni
ties. The settlements were entirely on one side—th^
eastern side of the continent. The dread of the In
dians and the distance from the eastern hemisphere
compelled the citizens of the new world to be harmon
ious, to a degree. Menaced by common foes and de
pendent on each other, iy times of danger and drouths, 4
they united upon measures for common safety and
dared not ostrasize themselves from neighborly corres
pondence. In one hundred and thirty seven years
we are now masters of the continent, reaching from
ocean to ocean. From being a small, weak people we
have grown to be the most successful and remarkable
nation on the globe. The greatest wealth has been ac
quired, without the aids of royal favor or military
achievements.
But we have gained some other things that we
cannot exult over—to any appreciable degree. The
enormous growth of our population has been largely
owing to the influx of hordes of the most ignorant and
uncultivated people of the old world. While they have
brought numbers—they did not bring the arts and
graces which promote refinement and culture. We
have attempted to meet this difficulty with free-school
education, but this public education is always forced
to begin with children who had nothing to start with
in their ignorant homes. The progress on this line
has been unduly slow. Great wealth has been con
centrated in the hands of the few—while the burden of
illiterate labor is scattered over millions of poor homes.
But we are so self-important, self conscious, that
we boast in grandiloquent terms over the glory and
majesty of the republic, while we are really dealing
with an imrpense deal of ignorance, and are pulling
a dead load in the progress of republic.
• • •
GIN REPORTS.
For a great number of years the department of
agriculture in Washington city employed an agent in
the state of Georgia to give authentic information as
to the size of crops, the value thereof and the increase
and decrease as to quantity, etc. The salary was one
thousand dollars a year. But it seems that the farm
ers of Georgia got next to nothing, as a return for
the service.
Then the “Gin Reports’’ came along, and it seems
that there have been some notable miscalculations on
that line, which caused the reports to be padded and
seriously assisted in hammering down the price of cot
ton. That is what we may continue to expect from
thes© efforts—and for my part I wish we could wipe
off the state all such extras and get rid of the inces
sant hammering down, so fgr as the price of cotton is
concerned.
*
A gentleman who has investigated the published
gin reports of 1911, has made a study of the subject
and has published the result of investigations. He
does not live in my county, but he is responsible for
what be here declares:
“We will now look to Burke county, Georgia, the
largest cotton-producing county in the state. Accord
ing to Bulletin 114 she produced in 1911 67,086 bales.
I have corresponded with the highest officers in Burke
and from what they say I figure that every man, wo
man and child on the farm in that county would have
produced over four bales of cottoh, and to take the
average of the state each one would have cultivated
twelve acres in cotton, or counting five to the family
each family would have cultivated sixty acres in cot
ton, and from the best estimates from those acquainted
with the county there was only about one-third of the
farm land in cotton, which wouid necessitate each farm
family cultivating 180 acres.”
This Is a stunner—and when a report like bulletin
114, goes all over the United States, it would appear
as if Georgia land has incalculable cotton production.
“Maybe we will find them in Dooly county, as it is
the second largest cotton producing county in the state,
according to bulletin 114. 1 figure t from the map that
Dooly, contains about 400 square miles, and would
have to have seventy gins, ginning an average of 657
bales each, which would place the gins a little over
two miles apart all over the county; and if the map
is correct there are some rivers and lakes in Dooly
county, and if we count that mileage out the gins in
Dooly would be thick enough to burn over, if there
were any farm houses and barns, towns and cities in
the county. If we say that Dooly has not her pro rata
of gins, and they ginned more than 657 bales each, then
you come up with a dozen or more gins short, which
I suspect, and if we should trace this thing all over
the cotton belt I think we will find an average of ten
gins to- each county too much.”
Is it any wonder that a bumper crop could be fore
told and the price let down to a most convenient figure?
Some of us have not forgotten the scandal that was un
covered in the department of agriculture in Wash
ington city, where one wofhan and two men clerks
fixed up a notice one afternoon and sent it to New
York cotton speculators, and delayed the report that
was to go to the whole country until next day. Ac
tually it has become disheartning to understand the
tricks and turns that are used to pull off a farmer’s
legitimate profits.
• • •
GIFTS.
Joy, Gladness, Happiness, and Mirth,
With garlands twined around arm and waist,
Came floating down from heaven to earth,
Each with a wreath of roses graced.
Mirth with pink petals gently stewed
A head that pressed a pillow white—
A babe who crowed in merry mood
Because the world was warm and bright.
human nature. It would seem, however, that since
such confessions are made anonymously and thus af
ford a certain sense of moral relief without the peril
of punishment, the fact that fewer were forthcoming
last year is evidence that there really were fewer to
be made. Of humanity in general, as of individuals,
it is always better to think well rather than ill, if
we have the slightest chance to do so.
No race suicide in Georgia. A new county is born
every legislature.
Bonnet the Hors°.
Generally speaking it may be true, as the president
of the National Education Association declares, that
horses receive more attention than children; but
there are particular instances where the odds are
grievously against the horse.
During the _,ast week twenty-tnree horses have
suffered sunstrokes on the streets of Atlanta, simply
because their owners or drivers failed to take a few
easy and inexpensive precautions for the poor ani
mal’s protection. 5
A horse is as much entitled to a bonnet on a blis
tering summer’s day as a woman is entitled to a new
hat on Easter 'orning.
The man who wantonly makes a city horse stand
long hours under a cruel sun should himself be made
to go bareheaded and by “exposing himself to feel
what wretches feel,” learn the first principles of
humanity.
The new Shakespeare: “Rosalind romps through
Twelfth Night.”
purposes.—Kansas City Star.
War, Indeed.
The stark realism of war was never depicted
more grimly than in current dispatches from the
Balkans. If the reports be half true, the savagery
of Bulgarian atrocities exceeds anything the Turks
themselves ever did under color of battle. Indeed,
it is difficult for the peoples of enlightened nations
to conceive that even the bitterest war could be
pressed to such inhuman lengths.
It is a sharp satire upon the governments and the
armies that went forth in a so-called crusade against
Turkish barbarism that they should themselves turn
butchers, one of the other, after the principles for
which they fought had been established. It would
seem that after all the thirst for blood, when once
acquired, is no less savage in one people than in an
other, and that the habit of throat-cutting, once
formed, knows no libiit. Despite the veneer of cus
tom and circumstance, war is pretty much the same
at all times and in all places.
The victory of the Bulgarians over Turkey was
hailed as a triumph of civilization; and so it might
have proved, had not the Balkan States, forgetting
their common cause, fallen to slashing one another
in a quarrel over territorial spoils. Had they re
mained at peace, the rich lands which came under
their dominion would have been developed and the
peoples who looked to them for government would
have been free to utilize their natural resources.
Southeastern Europe would have been re-created and
would have become an ornament instead of an eyesore
to civilization.
Then .Happiness her garland threw
Around a youthful, loving pair,
Whose thoughts were all of roseate hue,
Because the world was fresh and fair.
The crown of Gladness, rich and'sweet,
Was laid on one who, low and long,
Sang songs with hope and trust replete,
Because the world was brave and strong.
But Joy crept down the lane of years.
And placed white blossoms on the breast
Of one who, past all grief and tears,
Lay smiling peacefully—at rest.
Twinkling Tales
Two amateur burglars were reconnoitering a neigh
borhood. One pointed out a prosperous looking house
as a likely subject for their efforts.
“Nope," said the other. “Tain’t worth while crackin’
that house. I looked through the window, and they’re
so durn poor that two ladies actually had to play on
one piano.”
* * *
^ One evening when a water inspector was going his
round, he stopped at one of the mains in a busy street
to turn off the water owing to some repairs. He had
just put the handle on the tap when a hand was placed
on his shoulder by a tipsy gentleman, who said, in a
drunken tone:
“So I have found you at last, have I? It’s you
that’s turning the street round, is it?”
REPEATER
Political Boss—Want a job, eh? Are you one of
the men that voted for Kelly?.
Applicant—I'm three av thiml
THE INCOME TAX
XX.—Tax Dodging and Dodgers.
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
The man who can frame a tax law that will not be
evaded by many people has not been born. This ap-!
plies not only to income taxes, but to property taxes as!
well. One, of the principal ob
jections urged against the in-j
come tax is that it would make
us a nation of liars and put aj
premium upon perjury. One!
does not have to go very far to!
find that if we regard under
valuation as lying and failure
to list property as perjury, we
are already such a nation and
such a premium already has
been placed upon perjury.
* • •
To what an unimaginable ex-!
tent tax dodging has been car-|
ried on is shown by the records i
of the census office. In 1904j
the unexempted property in the:
United States was valued at a
little more than $100,000,000,000,
this valuation being given in by
the people to the census enu
merators. But wher the assessors of taxes went
around listing tithables a little later, these same peo
ple placed a valuation of less than $39,000,000,000
upon that same property.
• * •
The worst evasion, of course, comes with personal
property, because such a large percentage of that is
intangible and can escape assessment. It is so bad,
indeed, in many states, i that if an income tax law
could make it worse it would be surprising; so bad
that one authority declares that few but the ignor
ant do not dodge personal property taxes; so bad that
an Illinois commission has branded it a school for
perjury promoted by law; so bad that in West Vir-j
ginia they say people regard the payment of person- 1
alty taxes to be just about as voluntary as a Sunday
school contribution.
• • •
How extensive the dodging of personal property"
taxes is may be shown by the figures from many
states. The census inquiry of 1904 valued the per-,
soaal property of Pennsylvania at $4,882,000,000 and!
the tax returns valued it at $1,104,000,000. New York, .
according to the census, had personal property valued
at $o,500,000,000, and, according to the tax lists it:
was worth only $500,000,000. In the United States, ;
as a whole the people informed the census enumera-i
tors that tueir personal property was worth $4p,000,-
000.000, and. declared to the tax assessor that its fair
value was $9,000,000,000.
The dodging of taxes is by no means limited to
personal property, for in nearly every city and hamlet :
and farming district there is a systematic undervalua
tion of real estate. Of course, there is no chance of!
dodging entirely, since land ownership always and
everywhere is recorded. But there are innumerable in-!
stancs where real estate has sold for two, three, four
and even five Jimes the value at which it was as- 1
sessed. So widespread has become the practice oflun-,
dervaluing real estate in the United States that the
tax books show an aggregate value of only half as
as much as the census records. In other words, the 1
landowners of the country told the census enumera-j
tors that their real estate was worth twice as much
as they swore to the assessor it was wonth.
Property owners are not the only tax dodgers in
the United States by any manner of means. Even
whole counties very frequently join tacitly in a move
ment to beat the state in which they are located out
of the revenue that belongs to it. For instance, not
long ago the auditor of Virginia announced that of
the hundred counties in the state seventy took more
money out of the state treasury for their purposes I
than they .put in it by tax collections. Some of therm
have deliberately, and with forethought, fixed a rafe f
of assessing property#«t a fourth, or even a fifth of
its real value. This permits them to pay Into the
state treasury a very small share of wljat they ought
to, and they pronounce it good business policy, since 1
they take, out of the state treasury funds apportioned
on population.
• • •
From this it will -he seen that the evils of ta*
dodging are by no means limited to income taxes, and
there cannot well be a greater tax upon the national
conscience with an income tax than with a personal
property tax. With an exemption of income below $4,-
000 it is not probable that more than one man in
twenty-five will have to pay an income tax, so that if
every man who is liable to it strains his conscience it
will be in no wise comparable, in the number of peo
ple affected, to false returns that are made in every;
state in the union upon personal property.
But with a system of stoppage at its source euclt
as England has, only a comparatively small percent
age of the income taxpayers can dodge it by false re
turns. After the Civil war there were less than 300,-
000 taxpayers under the income tax law, when the ex
emption was as low as a thousand dollars. Assuming
that there would be as many in proportion today who
would have incomes of $4,000 the$total number di
rectly affected would not be more than 750,000, and
of these, the bulk of the incomes (according to the
English experience, four-fifths), would have little op
portunity for tax dodging. It is probable that a sys
tem of stoppage at the source would reach a larger
proportion of taxpayers in the United States than in
any other country, /including England, since a larger
proportion of th© wealth of the United States is cor
porate wealth. For instance, the corporation tax re
turns show a total corporation capital in the United
States of $60,000,000,000, which Is probably more than
half of the total wealth of the country as it will be
revealed when the census bureau finishes its tabula
tions of wealth. In 1904 the total national wealth
was placed at $107,000,000,000.
* *
* In England many methods of evasion are re
sorted to, som© legitimate an<i others clearly unlaw
ful. Many corporations which are in reality English
corporations with branches in other countries assume
to be foreign corporations in England. Some corpora
tions which do business abroad, in order to save their
incomes from that business from being taxed, establish
permanent branches abroad and never bring the income
home. The English liken this to the policy of Amer
ican manufacturers who, in order to get around the
tariffs which other countries levy against American
goods, build branch factories in the countries where
they desire to avoid duties, and do their manufactur
ing there rather than to make their products in the
United States and ship them into the countries in
question.
Still another way to dodge their income taxes, re
sorted to by English gentlemen, is to turn over shares
in corporations to their sons, the income therefrom
to serve in lieu of allowances. If the father paid the
allowance Itself, he would first have to pay his tax
upon the income it represents. But when the son gets
the dividends from the stock direct he escapes such a
tax. But with all the forms of tax dodging that are
resorted to in England in connection with the income
tax, it is estimated that only about $650,000,000
of income arises from sources where a careful and
persistent checking up is not possible.
Penalties fixed by law for dodging income taxes as
well as those for dodging other taxes vary ip the sev
eral countries that have such taxes. In some cases
a falsification of returns by omissions is penalized
more severely than failure to make any returns what
ever. In some countries the Penalty Is made aft
amount double the tax evaded, In outers treble, and *Tn
at least one country the person Evading any tax is lia
ble for half of the income upon which he dodged the
tax. Some countries aim to encourage men who have
given false returns to act if any pangs of conscience
attack them as a result. This is accomplished by a
provision that if any man dodge his tax and voluntar-!
ily comes forward at any time thereafter and con
fesses his fault and pays the taxes dodged no penalty'
shall be imposed and be shall be absolved from cen
sure.