Part 2

I shall take it for granted that at a time when more than ever the unity of the country should be emphasized, sectional selfishness will find no place in the taxation program, and that, should it be attempted nevertheless, the congressional delegations of the States which would be unjustly affected, would resist, regardless of party affiliations, harmful discrimination against their constituents and their States.

I shall assume that it is not the purpose and intent of Congress, under the guise of the necessities of the war situation, to embrace the doctrines of Socialism.

Our present economic system, our present method of wealth distribution may or may not stand in need of change; the fact remains that Congress has no mandate to effect a fundamental change.

The consequence of such a change would be so immensely far-reaching that no government has the right to sanction steps to bring it about until the subject has been fully discussed before the people in all its bearings and the people have pronounced judgment through a Presidential or other election.

I will first state what in my opinion ought not to be done:

I take it that not many words need be used to expose the fallacy of the argument, heard even in the Halls of Congress: "If men are to be conscripted, wealth also must be conscripted."

Men will be conscripted to the extent that it is wise and just and needful. So, and no other, should wealth and the country's resources in general be conscripted.

And, are not the children of the well-to-do conscripted equally with the children of the poor?

Indeed, the proportion of the sons of the well-to-do on the actual fighting line is bound to be a predominating one, because vast numbers of wage workers in the industries and on the farms will necessarily have to be retained at their accustomed vocations in order to maintain the output of our factories and farms.

Have the children of the well-to-do been backward in volunteering? Were they not, on the contrary, amongst the very first to offer to serve and to fight?

There appears to prevail amongst not a few people the strange delusion that America's entrance into the war was fomented by moneyed men, in part, at least, from the motive and for the purpose of gain.

Were there any such men, no public condemnation of them could be too severe, no punishment would be adequate. I am absolutely certain that no such hideous and dastardly calculation found lodgment in the brain of any American, rich or poor.

Moreover, is it not perfectly manifest that any rich man in his senses must have known that his selfish interest was best promoted by the continuance of the conditions of the last three years in which America furnished funds and supplies to Europe at huge profits, whilst our entering the war was bound to diminish those profits very largely (indeed, to entirely eliminate some of them), to interfere with business activity in many lines and to compel the imposition of heavy taxes on wealth?

It is to the credit of our rich men that, though fully realizing the extent of the monetary loss and sacrifices which war between this country and Germany must necessarily bring to them, there were but very few of them who supported the Peace-at-any-Price Party or favored the avoidance of America entering into the war when it had become plain that our participation in that war could not be avoided with honor and with due regard for our duty to our own country, or to the cause of right and liberty throughout the world.

Yet, somehow, the pacifists seem to have singled out the rich as mainly responsible for the war.

It may be due, consciously or unconsciously, to a resulting feeling of resentment that the proposal to confiscate during the war all incomes beyond a certain figure is actively promoted by leading pacifists--a proposal based upon ignorance of, or disregard for, the laws of economics, teachings of history and practical considerations.

If any such scheme were to be adopted, the consequences to the country at large would be far more serious than to the victims of the proposed action.

If such a measure of outright confiscation were seriously apprehended, at a time moreover and under conditions which are far as yet from calling for extreme measures, capital would cease to flow in its accustomed currents and some of it would seek other channels legitimately open to it.

It would certainly cease flowing into constructive use and would instead confine itself, to an extent at least, to municipal, state and federal tax-exempt securities. Enterprise would be seriously hampered and in some respects brought to a standstill entirely.

Many thousands of workmen would be thrown out of employment. Many businesses and shops would close.

There would ensue, as a natural consequence and without any conscious determination, a nation-wide strike of constructive activity and enterprise in commerce and finance, because men will not look upon it as a "square deal" if they are to take all the risk and responsibility, all the hard work and ceaseless strain and care of business effort, whilst the Government would needlessly take from them an unduly large share of the fruit of their labor, let alone all of it except an arbitrarily fixed sum.

I say "needlessly" because, were it really needed, business men would willingly sacrifice their entire income for the country's cause.

They would work for patriotism, without any recompense whatever, just as hard and harder than they do for gain or for ambition, if the occasion required it.

But, of course, everyone knows that nothing remotely approaching such drastic taxation is required in this country at this time.

It is absolutely right to proclaim and to enforce by legislation that no man, as far as it is possible to prevent it, shall make money out of a war in which his country is engaged, but there is all the difference in the world between that just and moral doctrine and between the doctrine that no man shall be permitted to have more than an arbitrarily fixed income during a war.

If $100,000 or any fixed sum is the limit of what may be permissible income during war time, why not by and by a lesser sum?

If the principle is once admitted, where will its application stop, even in time of peace?

Why is not the proposed plan, or anything in the nature of that plan, simply license for the materially unsuccessful to despoil the materially successful?