Tax-Collecting as a Fine Art

...If we permit even a benevolent octopus to dig in year after year we shall eventually find ourselves without even the machinery to remedy the condition...

...Witness, the Volstead disaster, witness as well divers and sundry congressional and senatorial investigations with their ever-present and resultant prosecutions for contempt...

...Federal legislation is therefore not only impractical but constitutionally impossible...

...Restrictive legislation will eventually limit us to such an extent that we will have no legal means of removing even the most corrupt public official...

...If we are unable to determine today whether or not the mayor of the fifth city in this nation holds his office as the result of a legal election, will we be able in ten years to satisfy ourselves that the President of these United States and its high administrative officers are the choices of the people ? When the senator-elect of one of the sovereign commonwealths of the union is openly faced with the accusation that "his election was partly bought and partly stolen" and can make no adequate defense to that charge are we prepared to defend our present elective system...

...They are again treated to the magnanimity of the organization as the heeler remarks, "Oh, forget that," or "See me after the election and pay me...

...In some instances prospective voters with a smattering of civic pride offer to pay for these receipts...

...in a great majority of instances on a prosperity issue and an ever-present will-o'-the-wisp promise of municipal improvements...

...Reduced to its lowest terms it places a value of $1.24 on a man's vote and $.83 on a woman's, wholesale rates in any election...

...But the instances are rare...

...Of one thing you may be certain...

...Even the man in the street realizes the impossibility of federal constitutional amendment when such action is dependent upon state ratification...

...If they do not have tax receipts he remarks on the terrific amount of trouble incident to securing them and the tedious hours necessary to be properly assessed...

...elective prosecuting officials owe their positions to controlled electorates and are consequently loath to prosecute vehemently the agents of the system to which they owe their maintenance...

...The lesson should be entirely obvious...

...This argument, of course, should backfire as it is the duty of the appointed assessors, controlled by the party in power, to see that all assessments are properly made...

...Now go one step further...

...One year prior to the date of the general election the books of the district assessors are closed and their reports made to the central board...

...The trend of government in the United States while professedly toward benevolent paternalism is in reality toward the greater restriction of personal rights...

...After the transmission of the tax books containing delinquents to the delinquent tax collector by the county treasurer, there has grown up a custom, fostered, encouraged and controlled by the party in power, of preparing a new and additional series of tax books for such taxables as have not been assessed up to that time...

...You may do that only by the amendment of state constitutions and you will have a ferocious struggle to do it, but a single successful fight would set the pace for ensuing legislation in other jurisdictions...

...He makes a house-to-house canvass of the residents of his district, asking prospective voters if they possess tax receipts...

...It must begin with a realization on the part of individual citizens of a sense of governmental responsibility...

...Finally it must demand that a voter register on a tax receipt which he has paid himself to a duly authorized official...

...at the very first sign of pain on the part of the victim, gas has been applied in lethal doses, where anaesthetic doles were insufficient...

...The only possible inference is, since these additional receipts are issued for occupational taxes only, so-called poll taxes, that they are secured solely for voting purposes...

...In a recent city election in my own city the controlled vote out-numbered the independent vote more than two to one...

...The district heeler for his services is tacitly guaranteed immunity from police interference with the bootlegging or disorderly house business in his particular zone...

...From a multitude of like instances, stage-managed sometimes in adroit fashion are built up in our large cities the so-called "controlled vote...

...The higher leaders secure widespread concessions in one form or another, perhaps in the award of large construction contracts or in some cases in the appointment to important city or county boards...

...This year the organization was beaten in the entire ward, containing over five thousand voters...

...You cannot reform an organization by prosecuting it through its own henchmen...

...Nevertheless its strength is so great and so widespread that unless it is immediately checked we can write "finis" to our democracy...

...Granting for the purpose of argument that the voters are evenly divided between the sexes, the average cost per tax receipt is $1.04...

...A controlled press, however, does not permit the true results to become known...

...Whereupon the county commissioners, having before them the list of taxables and their assessments and the county treasurer's budget, fix the tax rate and authorize the county treasurer to collect the taxes due...

...This is accomplished with an eraser and pencil...

...He will remain in office by divine political right despite what we may seek to do to remove him...

...I mean the enactment of legislation which will strike at the root of the evil: organized employment of controlled votes...

...Are we developing a different species of the same character...

...In the fullest sense of the word it is controlled and the percentage of error is less than y2 of 1 percent...

...Fundamentally dishonest and undemocratic it has unquestionably sapped our entire political plan until at the present time it is difficult to conceive how far the tentacles extend...

...The district chairman, likely a personable young man of uncertain morals and still more uncertain occupation, at the behest of a ward chairman undertakes the shepherding of the organization vote in his district...

...there is an immediate need for election reform...

...The voters cast their ballots with a sense of civic self-righteousness and read the morning papers with pride when they see recorded in a controlled sheet the victorious result of a controlled vote...

...Now for its causes and working scheme...

...In the past two decades, however, a system has been evolved and developed which evades this provision of our laws...

...I make bold to say that the interest and spare time of a single public-spirited citizen in every precinct in this country would eventually correct our present evils...

...Coincidentally the county treasurer submits to the county commissioners his estimated budget for the taxable year...

...We have even had upright public officials in the full sense of the word...

...The political battle was three-cornered and the winning party's plurality was only 20,000 over its nearest competitor...

...If it is, it may be that the interest of a public-minded philanthropist or some educational organization such as the Carnegie Foundation may be enlisted to arouse what is called civic conscience...

...When the results of a gubernatorial election are not known for five days during which time constant conferences take place between the two opposing political camps for the purpose of "trading" is the voice of the people being heard...

...Needless to say the winning faction was the incumbent one...

...The snowball should be started on a small scale and be built up, not on a large scale and torn down...

...In essence we have laws at the present time to control all of these factors, but the loopholes in them are so manifold that even the inauguration of criminal prosecutions seldom acts as an actual bar to corrupt practices, since the circle is so narrowed...

...The paper is based upon the results of an investigation in which the author took an important part...

...While not everyone will agree with Mr...

...The political organization which makes use year in and year out of controlled votes remains in power because it exerts itself to maintain and increase its momentum...

...They did this either by casting stray votes for him or staying away from the polls...

...In Pennsylvania, for instance, the acts of assembly governing the right to register as a voter provide primarily that a citizen otherwise qualified may register if he produces at the time of registration a receipt for state or county taxes paid within the period of two years immediately preceding the general election...

...By that I mean that the trend away from democracy is so smooth and even that upon the surface a micrometer and a fine tooth comb are necessary to plumb its visible course...

...Thereafter for a period of six months the central board may make assessments...

...Now all of this procedure is intricate and has been in years past accompanied by unavoidable delays and breakdowns in the machinery of collection...

...Now you will find these acts extremely involved...

...Last fall one man told his story in much the fashion I have to ten of those independent voters...

...The taxes so assessed become delinquent if unpaid on September 1 of each year and uncollected taxes are transmitted to a delinquent tax collector for collection...

...So far so good...

...Reform movements fail because after their inception they invariably lose momentum...

...It can be done...

...In other words new books which have never been in the hands of the county treasurer, the board of assessors or the county commissioners are prepared and placed in the hands of the collector of delinquent taxes...

...The circle is unending...

...Democracy as practised has been undermined until it now possesses only 33 1-3 percent of its purposed power...

...This latter official thereupon, after the first day of September, contrary to law, and in obvious disregard of the rights of legally qualified voters, proceeds to perform the functions delegated by acts of assembly to the county treasurer, and the county commissioners, and with the assistance and compliant silence of the board of assessors enters the names of taxables in these extra tax books, collects from them delinquent taxes which were never delinquent in the interpretation of the statutes and issues tax receipts therefor...

...Even at such times as this the salve of national expediency has been applied to assuage the burn and to justify tactics and policies which would hardly have been permitted or countenanced in the days of the Medici...

...Net result-the organization secures an absolutely sure vote at a net expenditure of $1.24...

...Fundamentally the constitution bars a national controlling act, since the right of franchise depends upon state citizenship, and the federal government is restricted save in those rare instances where the Senate has refused to seat an elected senator on its own motion...

...In the last general election there were 40,000 of these receipts issued in one county at an approximate expense of $41,600...

...Now then, for a brief financial recapitulation before discussing the uses to which these invalid tax receipts have been put...

...When finally the presidential candidate of a major party, whose nomination is tantamount to election, is chosen by seven men in a hotel room thick with smoke and the fumes of liquor, is it not about time that we questioned the adequacy of our present form of elective democracy...

...Anderson's belief that generations now living may see the American constitution submerged, the evidence for "controlled voting" he offers is impressive enough...

...With the expiration of this opportunity there should also expire his right to vote...

...A rhetorical question is in point...

...I hope that this is fundamentally a matter of education...

...So much for the actual result of the system in one instance...

...The action itself must be political...

...At times, as in the 1928 presidential campaign, it has been necessary to resort to some small violence in-order to rescue the drowning non-conformists from watery political death...

...There is one direful fact to be pointed out...

...It must make mandatory provisions for a method of assessment which will bar all post-dated registrations...

...Their books are then closed and the list of taxables is certified to the county treasurer and the county commissioners...

...We think it will arouse interest, if not concern, since the conditions described, though localized in Pennsylvania, are true in many other states.-The Editors...

...The district heeler reports to the ward chairman and files his lists...

...I realize that the history of our political development shows that sooner or later there is a popular revolution against political evils as there was against the spoils system, but present political science has been so well learned and tactics are so infinitely more shrewd that the hypnotic needle can now be inserted without considering the danger of popular protest...

...The ward chairman if he so desires becomes an alderman, or if he prefers a quiet life is guaranteed a wider immunity for bootlegging or gambling...

...would any sane business man refuse to expend $41,000 to secure the right to disburse $500,000,000...

...The chairman commanding a congressional district is given the right to make numerous appointments with their consequent revenue and return...

...A candidate in one precinct was elected year after year for twenty-two years by fifty-five controlled votes held in line by one man...

...If the answer is affirmative he congratulates them, calls them good citizens and solicits their support for his organization...

...The point to which your attention is directed, however, is that with the certification of the tax books to the county commissioners for the establishment of the tax rate by specific provision of and natural inference from the acts of assembly, expires the last opportunity for a prospective voter to be legally assessed...

...In isolated instances it may become necessary to substitute names for voters who have been forgotten or whose allegiance is more definitely established...

...On election day the district heeler gets his votes out by using his own car or a borrowed automobile to canvass his district and jolly or cajole the controlled vote to the polls...

...The ground plan is set up in the smallest unit of our political system, the precinct or voting district...

...The reform must come as the evil has come, from the bottom, from the smallest elective unit...

...To be effective this legislation must provide primarily for the restriction of the voting privilege to bona fide resident citizens...

...The controlled vote never stayed away...

...Let me trace the rewards for services rendered...

...The extraction of political power from the hands of independent voters has been very similar to the operation which takes place in the dentist's chair...

...He is even given police assistance in stamping out rival business...

...The latter issues a batch of receipts, which are delivered in turn by the various heelers and district deputies...

...There were in that district over a hundred independent voters who year by year gave enough scattered votes to guarantee the incumbent his position...

...It broadens from city to county, from county to state and inevitably from state to nation...

...Or perhaps he is given the automobile repair work for a district...

...You cannot beat it by calling it names and exposing it, but you can defeat it at the polls and once you have done that in a small district you have blazed the trail for its ultimate downfall, in a city, a county, a state or a nation...

...This winning faction will in the next four years control, in its relatively small zone, the expenditure of $500,000,000...

...To go back a step further the acts of assembly also provide the methods whereby the taxes so to be paid are to be assessed...

...By election reform I do not mean the installation of voting machines and the prosecution of corrupt officials alone...

...The ward chairman sends a check for the number of authorizations or names he has to the collector of delinquent taxes...

...Occasionally we find a district attorney with the courage to try and convict those finally responsible for the present evils...

...That is his payment...

...One decent altruistic citizen could in twenty-four hours shake the foundations of organized control in his district or precinct by appealing solely to that element in us which we claim is God-fearing...

...Finally, with great magnanimity, he offers to secure receipts for them subject to the tacit or outspoken provisions that the recipients shall register and support his candidates...

...The organization candidate was beaten almost two to one...

...Let me illustrate...

...The full results of this system, if they were known, would unquestionably cause us to throw the entire system overboard...

...WITHIN the next two decades it is possible that we may see the entire submergence of the American constitution...

...The process has been easy and painless...

...Briefly they provide for the appointment of district assessors and a central board of assessors...

...Succinctly put, that means that your ballot or mine had exactly one-third the effect which the framers of the constitution intended it should have...