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The Commoner
JUNE, 1918
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President Wilson Scores Profiteers
A Washington dispatch, dated May 27, says:
resident Wilson today ended discussion wheth-
r congress shall remain in session this summer
o enact new revenue legislation, by appearing
efore the house and senate in joint session and
ailing upon members to put asicre politics and
other considerations to provide money for
owfarg war expenses and to advise the country
of the tax burdens It must meet.
! As the President was leavine for the canltol.
word came that the German drive against the
west front had been Tenewed. He gave his
rlotf -a ArtimnUt tnnnli tv B'nTinnnnl'niT tho tiowb
jrJUll, I u. tt....i '""'" J .. .i WMt, viw -,,
'as he concluded his prepared speech, saying It
I strengthened the purpose he had tTied to ex-
Lpress.
The demand that with the war at its 'peak
and crisis" congress do its duty at home as the
soldiers aTe doing their duty in the trenches
--overseas, brought instant acquiescence. There
still was rel. ctance in some quarters to believe
immediate legislation imperative, but plans for
I midsummer adjournment were abandoned, and
both democratic and republican leaders ex
pressed their., determination of going at the task
of passing a. xevenue 1)111. The suggestion by
the President that most of the new taxes prob
ably would fall upbn incomes, excess profits and
, luxuries and that profiteers could be Teached in
this way, was greeted with cheers, and con
gressional leaders said later thomoney needed
would come from those sources.
The President's speech follows:
Gentlemen of the Congress: It is with un
affected reluctance that I come to ask you to
prolong your session long enough to provide
more adequate resources for the treasury for
the conduct of .the war. I have reason to ap
preciate as fully as you do how arduous the
session has been. Your labors have been, severe
and protracted. You have passed a long se
Ties of measures which required the debate of
many doubtful questions of judgment arid many
exceedingly difficult questions of principle as
well as of practice. The summer Is upon us,
in which labor and counsel are twice as ardu
ous and are constantly apt to be impaired by
lassitude and fatigue. The elections are at
hand, and we ought as soon as possible to go
and render an intimate account of our trustee
ship to the people who delegated us to act for
them in the weighty and anxious matters that
crowd upon us in these days of critical choice
and action. But we dare not go to the elections
until we have done our duty to the full. These
are days when duty stands stark and naked, and
even with closed eyes we know it is there. Ex
cuses are unavailing. We have either done pur
duty or' we have not. The fact will be as gross
and plain as the duty Itself. In such a case
lassitude and fatigue seem negligible enough.
The facts aTe tonic, and suffice to freskc "
labor. ..
ADDITIONAL REVENUES NECESSARY
And the facts are these: Additional revenues
must manifestly be provided for. It would be
a most unsound policy to raise too large a pro
portion of them by loan, and it is evident that
the four billions now provided for by taxation
will not of themselves sustain the. greatly .en
larged budget to which we must immediately .
look forward. We can not in fairness wait un
til the end of the fiscal' year is at hand to ap-
prise our people of the taxes they must .pay on'
their earnings of the present calendar year,
whose accountings and expenditures will then
bo closed. We can not get increased taxes un
less the country knows what they are to be and
practices the necessary economy to make them
available. Definiteness, early definiteness, as to
what its tasks' are to be is absolutely necessary
for the successful administration of the treas
ury. It can not frame fair and workable regu
lations in haste; and It mast frame its regula
tions in haste if it is not to know its exact
task until the very eve of its poiformance. The
present tax laws are marred, moreover, by in
equities which ought to be remedied; Indis
putable facts, every one; and we can not alter
or blink them. To state them is argument
enough. ESSENTIAL TO PREVENT INFLATION.
And yet perhapsyou will permit me to dwell
for a moment upon- the- situation they disclose.
Enormous loans freely spent in the stimulation
of industry of almost every sort produce infla
tions and extravagances which presently mako
the whole economic structure questionable and
insecure and the very basis of credit is cut
away. Only fair, equitably distributed taxation,
of tho widest incidence and drawing chiefly
from the sources which would bo likely to de
moralize credit by thefr very abundance, can
prevent inflation and keep our industrial system
free of speculation and waste. Wo shall na
turally turn, therefore, I suppose, to war profits
and incomes and luxuries for tho additional
taxes. But the war profits and incomes upon
which the Increased taxes will bo levied will bo
the profits and incomes of tho calendar year
1918. It would bo manifestly unfair to wait
until tho early months of 1919 to say what they
are to be. It might be difficult, I should imag
ine, to Tun tho mill with water that had al
ready gone over the wheeL
Moreover, taxes of that sort will not bo paid
until the June of next year, and the treasury
must anticipate them. It must use the money
they are to produce before it is due. It must
sell short time certificates of indebtedness. In
the autumn a much laiger sale of long time
bonds must be effected than has yet been at
tempted. What are the bankers, to think of the
certificates if they do not certainly know where
the money is to borne from which is to take
them up? And how aTe investors to approach
the purchase of bonds with any sort of confi
dence or knpwledge of their own affairs if they
do not know what taxes they are to pay and
what economies and adjustments" of their bus'
ness they must effect? . I can not assure the
country of a successful administration of tho
treasury in 1918 if the question of further tax
ation is to be left undecided until 1919.
AT CRISIS OF THE WAR
The consideration that dominates every other
now, and makes every other seem trivial and
negligible, is the winning of the war. We are
not only in the midst of the war, wo are at the
very peak and crisis of it. Hundreds of thou
sands of our men, carrying our hearts with them
and our fortunes, are in the field, and" ships
are crowding faster and faster to the ports of
France and England with regiment after regi
ment, thousand after thousand, to join them
until the enemy shall be beaten and brought to
a reckoning with mankind. There can be no
pause or intermission. The great enterprise
must, on the contrary, " i pushed with greater
and greater energy. The volume of our might
must steadily and rapidly be augmented until
there can bo no question of resisting it. If that
is to be accomplished, gentlemen, money must
sustain to the utmost. Our financial program
must no more be left iQ doubt or suffered to
lag than our ordnance program or our ship- pro
gram or our munitions program or our program
for making millions of men ready. These others
are not programs, Indeed, but mere plans upon
paper, unless there is to be an unquestionable
supply of money.
POLITICS IS ADJOURNED.
That is the situation, and it is the situation
which creates the duty, no oholce or preference
of ours. There Is only one way to meet thac
duty. We must meet it wlthouj; selfishness or
fear of consequences. Politics is adjourned. The
elections will go to those who think least of it;
to those who go to the constituencies without
explanations or excuses, with a plain record of
duty faithfully and disinterestedly performed.
I, for one, am always confident that the people
of this country will give a just verdict upon the
service of the men who act for them when the
facts are such that no man can disguise or con
ceal them. There is no danger of deceit now.
An intense and pitiless light beats upon every
man and every action In this tragic plot of war
that is now upon the stage. If lobbyists hurry
to Washington to attempt to turn what you do
in the matter of taxation to their protection or
advantage, the. light will beat also upon them.
There is abundant fuel for the light In the
records of tfie treasury with regard to profits
or every sort The profiteering that can not be
got. at by the restraints of conscience and love
of' country can be got at by taxation. There
is such profiteering now and tho Information
with regard to it is available and indisputable.
I am advising you to act upon this matter of
taxation now, gentlomon. not becauso I do not
know that you can seV and interpret tho facts
and tho duty they impose- just as well and with
as clear a perception of tho obligations involved
as I can, but becauso there is a certain solemn
satisfaction In sharing with you tho responsi
bilities of such a time. The world novcr stood
in such case beforo. Men never before had so
clear or so moving a vision of duty. I know
that you will begrudgo tho work to be done
here by ub no more than the men begrudgo us
theirs who lio In tho trenches and sally forth
to their death. There Is a stimulating com
radeship knitting us all together. And this
task to which I invito your immediato consid
eration will bo porformed under favorablo in
fluences If wo will look to what the country is
thinking and expecting and care nothing at all
for what 1b being said and believed In the
lobbies of Washington hotels, where tho atmos
phere scorns to make it posslblo to bellevo what
is believed nowhere else.
PEOPLE READY TO BEAR BURDENS.
Have you not felt the spirit of the nation rlsa
and its thought become a single and common
thought since these eventful days came in
which we have been sending our boys to tho
other side? I think you must read that thought,
as I do, to mean this, that the people of this
country are not onlyiunited in the resolute pur
pose to win this war, but are ready ad willing
to bear any burden and undergo any sacrifice
that it may bo necessary for thorn to bear in
order to win it. We need not be afraid to tax
them, if we lay taxes justly. Wo know that
the war must be paid for and that it is they
who must pay for it, and if the burden is Justly
distributed and tho sacrifice made a common
sacrifice from which none escapes who can bear
it. at all, they will carry It cheerfully and with
a sort of solemn pride. I have always been
proud to be an American, and was never more
proud than now, when all that we have said
and all that wo have foreseen about our people
is coming true. Tho great days have como
when the only thing that they ask for or admire
4is duty greatly and adequately done; when their
only wish for America is that she may share the
freedom sh& enjoys; when a great, compelling
sympathy wells up in their hearts for men every
where who suffer and are oppressed; and when
they see at last 'tho high uses for which their
wealth ha3 been piled up and their mighty
power accumulated and, counting neither blood
nor treasure now that their final day of oppor
tunity has come, rejoice to spend and to be
spent through a long night of suffering and
terror in order that they and men everywhere
may see tho dawn of a day of righteousness and
justice and peace. Shall wo grow weary when
they "bid us act?
May I add this word, gentlemen? Just as I
was leaving the White house I was told that
the expected drive on tho western front had ap
parently begun. You can realize how that sol
emnized my feeling as I came to you and how
it seemed to strengthen the purpose which I
have tried to express in these lines.
I have admired the work of this session. Tho
way in which the two houses of tho congress
have co-operated with the executive has been
generous and admirable, and It is not in any
spirit of suggesting duty neglected, but only to
remind you of the common cause and tho com
mon obligation that I have ventured to come
td you today.
ABOLITION OP TITLES SOUGHT IN CANADA
An Ottawa, Ont dispatch, dated May 21,
says: After a prolonged debate today on the
motion of W. F. Nickle, Kingston, for the abol
ition of hereditary titles in Canada and an
amendment of R. L. Richardson of Winnipeg
for the abolition of all titles, Sir Robert Bor
den, the Premier, introduced a substitute
amendment making the address to the King of
the quest' on read, "That Your Majesty may
hereafter be graciously pleased to refrain from
conferring any titles upon subjects domiciled
or living In Canada, except in accordance wjth
the principles enunciated in the order of coun
cil approved March 20, 1918, and laid on the
table of this house March 21, 1918." The order
In council recommended that all titles conferred
should be first approved by the Canadian gov
ernment The substitute amendment was car
carried on a vote of 104 to 71.
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