The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 9, 1918, Page 5

8« A - Stage Set to Reduce Profits Taxes - Special Interests Grooming Congress and Administration to Avoid Paying Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader OW comes the climax of the struggle between the masses and the commercial masters in the United States—the struggle of the people against the prof- iteer—to _ decide whether - the revenue bill shall be honest or fraudulent. All through the g war period, when retail prices upon food and clothing and fuel and all of the nec- essaries of life went steadily higher, we were told - by the government’s official “controllers” of these things to be patient. We were told that it would be impossible to keep the prices down to a fair profit in every case, but that the war profits tax, and the ~ income tax, all of-them to be adopted in the new revenue bill, would seize these extortionate profits from the profiteers and turn them into the public treasury. ; : ’ And now, in the closing weeks of the year, when peace has come and the people of the country are facing a great fight against world famine, we learn that the rates of taxation upon the profiteers may “safely” be reduced. That is the issue between the reactionary and the progressive elements in the United States senate today. - Billions of dollars in excessive profits, taken from the pockets of the farmers and the wage-working consumers by the steel trust, the copper trust, the " lumber trust, the coal barons, the meat packers, the leather and wool and cotton trusts, the.sugar kings and the flour millers—these billions in blood-stained profits are at stake. : : Is the congress of the United States going to betray the one hundred million ordinary consumers and turn over the commercial loot of the past year to the few thousand 3 3 profiteers ? The- senate com- mittee on finance is now drafting a new revenue bill to replace the one - adopted last sum- mer in the house. The house bill was gentle enough with the profiteers. It asked at the most for only 80 per cent of the EX- CESS profits; that is, it permitted the meat packers .and the rest of the non- sacrificing patriots - to. hold up the peo- . ~ ple of the United States for at least 20 per cent of the profits after they had takén the mini- mum of 10 to- 12 ) per cent. - Most of them were to get more than the < 20 per cent extra beyond the hands%me minimum. SECRETARY OF TREASURY STARTS THE GAME But now comes the secretary of fhe tredsury;-as ‘soon as the peace armistice is signed, and tells the senate committee on finance that instead of raising $8,000;000,000 in revenue by taxation next year, - the bill should raise only $6,000,000,000. And the suggestion is made, and received with delight by most of the standpatters, that: while the eitizen -having a comparatively small income should be 'made to pay 12 per cent of it, above the exemp- '* tion, to the government, the big business concerns should be treated more gently than had been plan- ned. Taxes on war profits and excess profits should ‘ be reduced. e R ~ Incredible and outrageous as this may seem, in view of the constantly repeated pledges by the food .and fuel administrations; the war industries board, ing agency, that “we will take the mioney back through'the excess profits and war ts-taxes,” the profitee ‘now beginni ot the . who desire farming. But with the special interests - getting out from under war profits taxes and con- -~ the shipping board and every other contract-letting - . and price-regulating Out Large Part of Excess Earnings in 1918 excess profits, individual incomes, corporate in- comes and inheritances almost sufficient to make The country was hardly aware of the results of the November 5 elections be- fore it heard a loud-clamor for lower- ing the taxes on war profits piled up in the last year. It was a big issue in the election; yet all the kept press told us that the only issue was 100 per cent ‘loyalty. It is certainly peculiar how our special interests can fool our very wise newspaper editors on an impor- . tant matter such as this. The inde- pendent papers, on the other hand, knew what was up, but they could not reach enough of the people to head off “100 per cent loyalty.” To be consist- ent with former mistakes the kept press must.-now assume that war prof- its taxes ought to be lowered and all congressmen who oppose will be desig- nateéd as “bolsheviki,” a term which, as applied to Americans by the big press, means any one differing with Wall street. The fight for democracy at home is;on in earnest, and the pluto- crats. will find many nice names for themselves and bad names for their opponents as a substitute for issues on which they can not appear openly before the people. AND IN GRAND VALLEY PROJECT, COLORADO [ tAND I GrAnD vALLEY PROVECE couoRbo ] Land such as this is being irrigated and turned into " farms by the government engineers. There is much talk of preparing such farms for returned soldiers trolling the reconstruction mrogram, as they have hopes of doing, the desire of the common people and . returned soldiers for a new deal can hardly be real- ‘in th Even if the soldiers get \ up the $6,000,000,000 which Secretary McAdoo now thinks will be enough for next year’s needs. By increasing the rates on inheritances, or upon the larger incomes, or the war profits and excess prof- its, the whole sum could be raised without taking a dollar from the people in taxes upon consumption. If congress were progressive, the normal rate of 12 per cent on the smaller incomes would be“cut to 8 ° per cent, and the incomes of our new crop of mil- lionaires would be taxed to make up the same total. But the senate now has the bill, and the senate has yet to show itself progressive, even.in the face of an outraged public. Possibly the senate would do better if, say, one-half of our soldiers had re- turned from France and were going to work in the fields and the factories again. It is a safe predic- tion. that when. the soldiers are demobilized there will be less safety for billion-dollar jugglery of war taxes for the further enriching of profiteers. : There is a chance that the game will be spoiled by a small group of progressive Republican and progressive Democratic senators, chiefly from the Middle West. PROGRESSIVE LINE-UP IN THE SENATE La Follette of Wisconsin, 2 member of the finance committee, who has been crucified in the reactionary ~press throughout the war period for his stand in favor of high taxation of war profits—although the assault was always camouflaged as an indictment of “disloyalty”—is leading the defense of the peo- ple’s right to these billions of dollars. Supporting La Follette may be counted Lenroot of Wisconsin, Norris of Nebraska, Kenyon and probably Cummins of Towa, Borah of Idaho, Gronna of North Dakota, Johnson of California and pos- sibly Jones of .Washington, on the Republican side. On the Democratic side there will be Nugent of Idaho, Shafroth of Colo- ; . rado, Thompson of Kansas, Robinson and Kerby of Ar- kansas, of Texas, McKellar of Tennessee and a scattered few others, : On the decision of the senate de- pends the fate of the revenue scheme. compel the senate the people who have -contributed these billions in * war profits, then the mind of the American publiec ‘ : ed to the recon- struction problems—the question of public owner- million returned soldiers and war-industry workers upon newly' made farms, cut out: of the public - domain by the government. If the revenue bill be- ‘trays ‘the pledges of the government to. the peo- _ple, then the whole issue of taxation and. the spe- cial immunity of the big thieves of commerce must - at once be fought out. - . The Leader bureau will furnish to the readers of this magazine the rollcalls which tell the story of ¥ good or bad faith by the senate of the United States. e SPECIAL INTEREST COMPROMISE - In Colorado the Rockefeller-Guggenheim interests haye always insisted on getting at least three pub- ... lic offices: the assessor so that their taxes would he ' Sheppard - If the progressives, to keep faith with can safely be turn- - ship, for example, and the question of putting a ) D T 5 SR G LSS D L S e T AT AR G REENTIAE DA A IS T RN e o \ X P R = low, the sheriff to arrest those they wanted arrest- ed, and the coroner to report “properly” the cases of human slaughter in the mines. Of course they . would take all if they could. ; " But in a face of a reform wave they would: some- - times compromise by letting the reformers h‘ayeth the ey . other offices. iCome to think of it, however, : r,ealfy\-:lii‘,idn’t, need the ‘compromise on anything fundamental to thi