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Show INCOME TAX FOOLISHNESS. A Walc Plank la tl.. oiilu Drmoorat Platform. Plat-form. New York Sun. Dili thedetuocratsofOliio understand j what they were fining when thev put iiB l.y side in their puriy platform for ! the important campaign now opening these two declarations? ' I. " " o are !; ! to nil c!n-. !r".:'s'atloii.'' V, " Wu .inur a rai!ml iin-onm tux.'' An income lax of any kind is class legislation of tho worst sort. It divides thu couiiniiniiy into tw cl;i.-sos, tl.ti hourist mid Uiu di.tioiit'.st, a:i ii. t ;i e-i the hmii'st for tin' Ix-nuiit ol th l:ln ri-cst. ri-cst. 'J'his oilious lufihinl "f r.iisir, rt'VctniB has never hern ile-enbeil lie:-tor lie:-tor than an a tariff on integrity ami a bounty ou perjury. Only oiii-e in thu Jiistory of thu country coun-try has lhrr.1 1h.":i an atti-nipt to levy ; an incDioo t:tx. Thmi the tax was ini-posed ini-posed as a war liieii.nirc. Never ?aii:. j except in tlio direst Decejsity or the ; Wildest folly, will ill') epi ritni'fit he, . repeated. Tim tax survived until 17;'. In l'sTl), t 1ib eensiH year, the population I of thu Unitod Slates wan u'-i,.V;,oil. The iiieoniii tax that year win paid by 7li.fi(il peroin, or one taxpap;r to one hundred and thirty-nine of population. The number of male eiti.emt of twenty-one twenty-one and upward was 1 1 in tli.it year. 'I he ineoine tax was paid by one j adult male in every thirty. Supiosiii; even that i! was equitably nsta.!l and fairly eoileeled, this cxperit ni-o allows to what decree, thu ineiiniu lax law is e.lass li;i-ilation. Hut fsii I-Ii a tnv niver wan assesled and e.olieeti'd, and never ran be without with-out thu grossest iujUHtien and thu rnos! oiilrtiifiitis tlispnriiv of biudens. Tie Attempt to collect a tax on personal property is slinplicily itself in comparison. compar-ison. To ascertain in the crudest way the approximate incomes' of tlio class taxed nutter class legislation of this kind, it becomes necessary to establish a system of impii-ilion and espimi bus repugnant to American ideas and abhorcut to the free fit i.en. 'the eyes of the pover.i-mmit pover.i-mmit spy into every man's private account ac-count books; the spies of tho government govern-ment oversea every housewife's expend itures. The honest American i-pnit will tolerate tho hateful iuUisilion oifv a? a sacrilice for the sake, of the nation V existence. Dishonesty the income lux will never reach. Krand tiuds a thou-and thou-and easy ways to evade it. In theory it in unphilosophical and undemocratic; in practice it is impossible. The Ohio democratic platform calls imt mutely for an income tax. but for a graded r uneiiial income tax. We suppose the Ouio platform mejiis a tax pradeil tip that is to s-iy with the rate uuirniented as the incomes increase. in-crease. That process leads straight to actur.l confiscation. If the tax, for example, ex-ample, on .fen) incomes is$"i.or one er cent, and on f 0 10 incomes or one and one-half per cent, and so on, the tax on if.',)) in OoO income becomes .',i'.5n,iii)0. Whatever adjustment may bo made between the rate of tax and size of income taxed, l he gralunlcd tax suoner or la ter reaches a point where it swallows up tho entire income. This is confiscation. confisca-tion. Progressive steps toward this are progressive steps toward conlisca lion. They ate steps along the direct road to communism. Thu comulaiive income tax, if it it could be honestly collected, would he the final outrage, in the way of class legislation. Jt would devide the free aud equal citizens of the United States into various classes one class paying nothing, noth-ing, another class paying 3 per Cent, another paying ID per cent, another paying into the treasury half of their incomes, and so on up to the class which sliders an absolute confiscation of tin) earnings of its skill, intelligence, energy ener-gy and accumulated savings. Lint does any democratic delegate who in the Ohio convention voted lor the graded income tax plank believe that a graded income tax could be so imposed and collected as to distribute equitably among tht citizens of this country tho burdens of government? If he does, he ou.:lit to he ashamed of his ignorance, if he does but believe j it, Inn voted for the resolution merely ; as eiie-ip till biiit tor tho cranks of tii-' I farmers' alliance and other cranks w iih hazy notions of tin; practicable and impracticable, im-practicable, he ought to bo ashamed of his duplicity and disloyalty to Uenio-j Uenio-j i-ratic principles. I ' 1 ' T |