In a so-called commonwealth with a realization of ultimate consequences, exemption of this nature would not be permitted in our midst, any more than would a royalist party or advocates of a military dictator. There is no fundamental difference in any of these three dangers. Autocracy and dictatorship are political dangers and therefore we are on guard; but because the effects of exemption are economic we jeopardize our liberty for lack of vigilance. Exemption, if carried on, means the inevitable concentration of economic power in the hands of the stronger few who have bargained for immunity and, in due time, through Tax-collectors, Banks, Trust Companies, and other reluctant undertakers, expect to foreclose upon the possessions of the weaker many; and not only fall heir to their goods but be able to enforce deficiency judgments and long protracted obligations falling from father to son, to be worked out painfully by labor and by deprivation for as many generations as they can be herded gently by the so-called capitalist who has gained exemption, by the state politician who thinks chiefly of his easy well-paid job and has been granted exemption, by the state teacher who is supposed to inculcate loyalty to authority and is exempt, by the policeman who enforces that loyalty and is exempt, by the state judge who severely punishes disloyalty and is exempt, and by the Church which preaches righteousness and resignation to authority, not in the name of Capital, but in the name of Christ, and is also exempt. That it is only partial exemption does not matter. It is actual disorder. What does matter much is that it is our own fault, and not the fault of those that are exempt.
This maladjustment, however, has its element of comedy. Exemption appears to be much more of a boon to the very wealthy than it actually is. They gain exemption; but their capital is bleeding to death through the inevitable depreciation of the dollar. As usual, the sharp tragedy of our bungling falls on the struggling farmer who pays far more than his share of both direct and indirect taxation, and on the simple-minded thrifty who have saved a small margin by self-denial and are investing in bonds or in life insurance. The $11,000,000,000 worth of bonds[1] that are exempt, together with
- ↑ “The Secretary of the Treasury in his report of the Treasury Department (Dec. 6, 1922) for the past fiscal year estimates that the volume
much taxation he can escape by calculating the exemption value of these investments. They are offered to those few of us who have secretaries. For all it has to do with democracy, they might just as well ask us to join in a raid on a neighboring village and request our seneschal to figure out the live-stock and other loot that is likely to accrue.
