TAXATION QUARTERLY October, 1927
Baltimore, Md, 10-7-1927.
It is impossible to talk taxes without talking government. One is justified is saying: No taxes, no government; no government, no taxes which is to say, if we had no taxes governments could not exist and if we had no governments no taxes would be necessary. All of us agree that society cannot exist without government, therefore taxes are a necessity. For just what food is to the human body, taxes are to government, and just as the human body can sustain life for a long time on poor food taken irregularly at wrong times and in wrong proportions, so government can be sustained for an indefinite period upon bad taxes that are oppressive, unjust, badly collected and in many respects injurious; but as bad food finally breaks down the health of the body so do bad taxes ultimately destroy the health and sometimes even the life of the body politic.
It is asserted that Rome owed its decline to bad systems of taxation as much as it did to slavery itself, for just at the time the 100 percenters were hollering the loudest the tax gatherers were so cruel and unjust in their efforts to squeeze the last cent out of the people that their morale was destroyed, their patriotism killed, and it became a matter of indifference to them under which taxing machine they lived. The same spirit was shown in our own country after this last war, when it was often said, “What's the use of trying to make money in your business when the government comes along and takes it away again?” Let this spirit become general and what happened to Rome will happen here. It only emphasizes the truth of the saying, THE POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER TO DESTROY. This power when used wrongly permits tyranny and robbery, all the more dangerous because they are carried on under the guise of law and because they are hidden.