WAR DEMANDS UNIVERSAL SACRIFICE
War Demands Universal Sacrifice Congressman Edward E. Browne, of Wisconsin, Made Able Speech in Congress on the Subject of War Profits Taxation—Tells of Cost of Living Among- the Poorer...
...If it is right for the Government to ask some men to fight and give their lives for their country, it is certainly righ{ to ask other men to give a large share of their incomes to the Nation's cause...
...We go into the homes of all alike...
...The appropriation amounts to over six times the total value of all the property, real and personal, within the state of Wisconsin...
...Social Unrest TODAY THERE IS A SOCIAL UNREST in this country...
...If we had levied a tax for the same amount as England we would have raised $3,200,000,000 on this tax alone...
...The man with a salary of $G00 or $1,000 a year endeavoring to raise a family can not stand a $10 or $20 tax as well as a man with an income of $1,000,000 per year can stand a tax of $090,000...
...1.53 June 1, 1914...
...Twenty-two million dollars a year profits would certainly keep the wolf from scratching very hard at the Du Pont door...
...The entire resources and wealth of the country and, much greater than that, the lives of the hundred million people of the United States have been pledged to the President to bring the war to a successful termination...
...If this amount had been taxed SO per cent., it would have given the Government over $60,000,000 in taxes, and still the Du Ponts would have had a balance of over $22,000,000 profits, as against $4,500,000 before the war...
...It rests upon Congress to see that this principle is carried out in futiffe revenue bills...
...The workmen consider they should be dealt with as men...
...Also, whether we shall issue bonds, mortgage the future to pay the greater part of the expenses of the war...
...A war of'the magnitude we are engaged in demands universal sacrifice...
...We must not overlook the fact that quite a large part of most every tax is shifted bo that the ultimate consumer in his actual necessities of life pays a large indirect tax...
...War-Revenue Bill THE PRESENT REVENUE BILL was a compromise...
...5) uncertainty as to the future...
...The rank and file of the American people who must do the fighting and produce the vast quantities of supplies, which at this time are as necessary as armies, are not making anything out of the war...
...Ninety-eight and one-half million people paid no national income tax because they did not have incomes that reached $3,000 per year...
...Justice in Taxation JUSTICE IN TAXATION does not mean equality in the amount of money paid...
...The cost of living in the United States has gone up nearly 100 per cent, and wages have not gone up over 28 per cent...
...I do not favor trying to raise money through the Post Office Department by increasing postage...
...14.97 The same publication gives "composite" steel prices: June 29, 1917...
...In times of war there should be equality of sacrifice...
...England appointed a committee of inquiry into industrial unrest, and a very thorough survey was made, the committee reporting as follows: The unrest is really widespread and in some directions extreme...
...Approximately 377,000 people of this country paid a national income in 101 n. They represent not to exceed one million and a half of people out of our entire population of 100,000.000 people...
...War Demands Universal Sacrifice Congressman Edward E. Browne, of Wisconsin, Made Able Speech in Congress on the Subject of War Profits Taxation—Tells of Cost of Living Among- the Poorer Classes...
...This enormous sum of money and the larger amounts of money that will have to be appropriated by succeeding Congresses to meet the expenses of the war must be raised by taxation...
...It may be a greater sacrifice for a man of small means to be taxed a few dollars, so that he has to forego all luxuries and many necessities, than for a man of wealth to be taxed 95 per cent, of his total income...
...They show clearly that the poor have been compelled to resort to the strictest economy in order to provide food on account of the high prices...
...King, of the University of Wisconsin, a reliable statistician, is authority for the statement that...
...The sale of the ordinary cuts of incuts in this class of stores seems to have been discontinued and the meat now purchased consists of hog livers, hog kidneys, neck bones, hog faces...
...13.61 Juno 1, 1913...
...It means equality coupled with an equal ability to pay...
...He is already down to the bone...
...The average person in this country can not give up much more money than he is giving at the present time...
...137»181,315 The year 1912...
...2) profiteering...
...always shifted upon the consumer...
...There is no use of shutting our eyes to the situation, but we should study the causes, for I believe that this country has more to fear from the unrest and dissatisfaction caused by social and economic conditions at home than it does from foreign foes...
...Commissioner of Labor's Report THE UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF LABOR made a survey of the city of Washington, filing his report October, 1917, showing that one-third of the families living in the city of Washington faced a deficit for the fiscal year...
...53.56 June 29, 1917...
...They are growing poorer every day on account of the runaway prices of the necessities that the average family has to buy...
...71,063,015 The year 1913...
...2 per cent, of the people of the United States own 65 per cent of this country's total wealth...
...We never have had on© yet, and never will be able to enact a perfect and equitable tax law...
...Be argued that the United States should make the same application of excess profits taxes that were made by England.— Editou's Note...
...108,174,073 We quote the United States Steel Corporation figures because they are the only ones available...
...over $300,000,000 per year and then leave them nearly $100,000,000 profits per year, a sum very much larger than they ever made, and they have always made exorbitant profits...
...I am not in favor of raising money by taxing freight or parcel-post packages, because such a tax is...
...In 1916 its net earnings were $82,107,693...
...It will be noted that one of the reasons assigned for the unrest was that the Government did not check profiteering...
...1.77 In connection with these figures, showing the increase in the cost of raw materials please consider also tbo( published earnings of the United States Steel Corporation: First quarter, 1917...
...4) inequality of sacrifice...
...malleable, $3.80 then, now $12...
...4.58 June 1, 1910...
...These enormous profits seem to us far from right, especially at this time, placing as they do such heavy additional burdens on the public for the sake of creating undue profits for the few...
...13.05 June 1, 1911...
...Figures of other companies probably show still larger percentage of profit...
...The United States Steel Co...
...If we levied the same tax, to wit, 80 per cent., on excess profits that England does, we would receive from the United States Steel Co...
...2.83 June 1, 1915...
...is making over $1,000,000 per day net profits over and above depreciation and all overhead charges...
...THE PRESENT SESSION of Congress has passed more important legislation than any other Congress or any other legislative body in the history of the world...
...We can not keep adding to the burdens of the already poor without crushing out their lives...
...of our own loss of profit thereby, and the loss to the country because these farmers can not have the advantage of the mechanical means "to increase their milk yield, save labor, and save feed...
...The masses of the people aro called upon, and will be more and more, to make great sacrifices during the continuation of the war...
...52.96 June 1, 1917...
...I do not believe that the principle of conscription of men can be defended unless it is accompanied by the conscription of incomes...
...6) want of confidence in the Government and resentment at undue interference...
...It is impossible to enact a perfect tax law...
...sheets, at $2.85 in 1913, now $11...
...When Fenator Kcnyon stated on the floor of the Senate that no man in these times should be allowed an annual income of over $100,000 per year he was denounced as an anarchist...
...The war-revenue bill is supposed to raise $2,534,870,000...
...The main causes for the unrest are set out as follows: (1) Food prices...
...5.70 June 1, 1917...
...There were many features of It that I did not like and voted to eliminate...
...Hon...
...The one means sacrifice and may be want, the other means no sacrifice...
...The present revenue bill met with strong opposition from the wealth of the country, which delayed its passage many months, yet the highest amount of taxation of excess profits was, "tax on amount in excess of 33 per cent, of capital at 60 per cent.," while in England they assessed all war profits at 80 per cent...
...President Wilson announced the doctrine early that excess profits and patriotism can not go together in this war...
...We are at this moment in sight of a possible social upheaval, or at least extensive and manifold strikes...
...Taking $6,000,000 as an average pre-war profit and deducting same from the amount made per year during the war, and you have over $76,000,000 net war profits...
...We have passed a law conscripting the boys of this country...
...Their purchases are of the cheapest possible articles and in smaller quantities than heretofore...
...Take, for example, the Du Pont Powder Co...
...3) industrial fatigue...
...The Steel and Metal Digest for June, 1917, gives the following figures on "composite pig iron" prices: July 3, 1917...
...We are writing the above letter thinking that perhaps it may contain information or suggestions that may be of interest to you at> this time...
...I herewith insert a letter written to me from a company of my own State which manufactures sanitary barn equipment, showing how the Steel Co...
...The next revenue bill will undoubtedly be larger...
...E. E. Browne, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Dear Sir: To give you some idea of the tremendous increases in the cost of our raw materials we might say that tubing, for which we paid $3.80 in 1913, now would cost us $12.94...
...When we conscript wealth we must go where we can find wealth, to the wealthy, and we certainly should not be more tender about conscrinting wealth than we are of conscripting boys, the flesh and blood of the land...
...is necessary to secure to the workingman a fair share of the product ot his labor and a just participation in the establishment of the conditions of the industry...
...bolts 20 5-8 cents then, now 60 cents...
...No tinkering wili meet the requirements of the situation...
...The total value of farm property in the United States, including land, farm buildings, and personal property, according to the last United States census, was less than twice this amount...
...This amendment was voted down...
...Yours truly, James Manufacturing Co., By E. W. Simons...
...When we conscript boys we go to the people that have strong, healthy, intelligent boys...
...1.47 June 1, 1913...
...This large expenditure of money can not be comprehended except by comparison...
...4-1.56 June 1, 1916...
...has increased prices, and how it affects our dairy farmers: Port Atkinson, Wis., July 0, 1017...
...The question that I believe will overshadow every other, issue in succeeding Congresses during the war and after its termination will be the question of taxation, whether Congress will pass a revenue law which will allow a shifting of the large proportion of the tax to the ultimate consumer or will raise the bulk of the tax from excess profits and income taxes...
...The question of framing an equitable and fair taxation bill is therefore a very important matter and one on which the future prosperity and happiness of the people depends...
...333,625,086 The year 1915...
...That sacrifice should be equitably apportioned...
...113,121,018 (or $-152,484,032 for the year...
...The humblest cottage in the land, if the iron fate of chance decrees that ono, two or three of the stalwart sons shall be offered to their country, is not exempt...
...One of the ablest speeches delivered in the last Congress upon the subject of tear pro/Its taxation teas delivered by Congressman Edward E. Browne of Wisconsin...
...Many parents would rather give over home, farm, all their wordly effects than have, their boy go, yet they bow to the voice of duty, and their country...
...18.55 June 1, 1915...
...I cheerfully take a position beside the able Senator from Iowa and would be willing to vote for an amendment to the revenue bill, as a war measure, much more drastic than making the maximum income allowed an individual $100,000 per year...
...The food committee appointed by the District of Columbia says: Interesting figures were obtained from the proprietors of some of the smaller stores, whose business is with the poorer people...
...I voted for the Keating amendment and other amendments which sought to place a higher tax on excessive profits, especially war profits...
...In 1913 its net earnings were $4,582,075...
...The year 1916...
...Browne contended that Congress should not be so tender in its treatment of the huge swollen incomes and war profits...
...I could name many other corporations that are making excessive profits out of the war, and I place in the RECORD at the close of my remarks a table, which is accurate, of the earnings of many corporations, that should be taxed much higher than they are...
...Already the large moneyed interests of the country that have made excessive profits from the war have begun a campaign, and every Congressman, Democrat or Republican, who raises his voice in favor of making the wealth of the country and those who are making excessive profits from the war pay a large proportion of the costs of the war can be assured of opposition at the next election...
...Senator Johnson, of California, introduced such an amendment to the revenue bill in the Senate, and made the statement that I have quoted regarding the amount of money such a tax would raise...
...When we read of »lie enormous profits made by tlie Steel Corporation and other similar concerns, we can not help but think of the hundreds and perhaps thousands of dairy farmers who have not bought, and who will not buy, dairy-barn equipment because of the high price...
...The total amount of money appropriated is $21,390,730,-940.46, or over 21 thousand millions of dollars...
...130,390,013 The year 1914...
Vol. 9 • November 1917 • No. 11
