Exchanges with Economics Professors
on Tax Reform
Bolton Hall
[Chapter XI from the book, Questions of the Day,,
published
by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1891]
THE UNIVERSITIES AWAKENING
The discussion carried on by the association with presidents and
professors of colleges and universities all over this country contains
nearly all possible objections and the answers to them. The
association opened the correspondence by sending to one hundred and
seventy institutions a short circular letter embodying the principles
of the association and asking for an expression of opinion as to its
objects. One hundred and seventy responses to this circular were
received. Of these, ninety-eight expressed views favorable to our
principles, thirty took issue with us, and forty-five were
non-committal. In the appendix to this volume will be found a list of
the presidents and professors from whom answers have been received.
Some of the correspondence growing out of this circular letter is
herewith appended;
Statement by Prof. George F. Holmes, University of Virginia,
Albemarle County, Va.
Dear Sir : The fullest information accessible in regard to direct
taxation, especially when levied principally on land, as with Henry
George, would invite my serious consideration. Mr. David A. Wells's
name at the head of your list of associates invites my favorable
appreciation of your doctrine, for I have long regarded him as the
ablest, clearest, and most advanced economist of this country. Yet my
opinions have been opposed to any single tax system. I have deemed
that all lines were requisite to avoid the escape of classes and
individuals from the burdens of the community, and to render the onus
of Government demands proportionate to the just liabilities, benefits,
and means of all and several.
The third and chief proposition of the platform excites the greatest-
dubitation in my mind. It seems a return in the direction of the
French economists and late innovators. It appears very questionable at
a time when, from the enormous extension of agricultural occupations,
and the competition of the whole world in agricultural production,
markets, and sales, land is daily declining in price, except in cities
and for manufacturing sites and mines. Moreover, land, like labor, is
becoming little more than a redundant but necessary accompaniment of
machinery and other forms of concentrated capital.
Response by Bolton Hall (2 October 1891)
My Dear Sir . Your letter prompts me to address you further on the
subject. Our proposition is not the single tax of Mr. George, but
simply the imposition of all taxes upon real estate, because this
would relieve capital engaged in production from the discouragements
attendant upon taxation. It is true that it would relieve some other
wealth from taxation, but we hold that taxation of bonds, stocks,
mortgages, and the like is unnecessary and wrong when real estate is
taxed, since these things stand for real estate, and consequently such
taxation would be double taxation.
The argument against taxing personal property is not only that such
property includes tools of trade and other aids to production, but
that much of such taxation would be easily avoidable. You seem to fear
that the effect of a system of taxation, such as we propose, would be
to oppress the farmer; on the contrary, I believe it would relieve him
from taxation. His tools of trade would escape, and if the assessment
upon land were justly made, as we contemplate, the effect would be to
place the burden of taxes in great part upon city and suburban lands,
and upon much land now held for speculative purposes. You mention that
land is constantly declining in value, and this is undoubtedly true,
in part, of agricultural lands; but city and suburban lands are
enormously increasing in value, and the effect of our proposition
would be to place the burdens where they belong, and to relieve the
farm lands that have for years past been falling in value.
Statement by Prof. J. G. Shepard
You ask for my opinion of your platform for tax reform, and I am glad
of the opportunity of giving it, as it is a question of the utmost
importance to all interests in the State.
1. If the reason you give for direct taxation is a good one, and I
believe it is, then all property owners should be taxed so that all
should have a conscious and direct interest in honest and economical
government.
2. The reason you give for exempting mortgages and capital from
taxation is specious rather than real. That taxation of personal
property develops inherent dishonesty is doubtless true, but how an
honest effort to adjust an equitable system of taxation offers a
premium for villainy is not apparent; nor do I comprehend what
industry is discouraged by an equitable system of taxation, except it
be the industry to violate law and escape just and righteous
obligations.
3. The first reason for your third article may be a good one, but I
utterly reject your second reason as a perversion of terms and an
outrage upon common-sense. When it can be shown that taxation of
itself cheapens production or anything else, then it can be shown that
it will be a benefit to the farmer and worker to pay all the taxes
needed to carry on government; and when that is established, the
higher the tax the better it will be for them, and the motive for
economical ad- ministration will be taken away.
4. With your fourth proposition I fully concur.
5. Of the fifth proposition I have only this to say, that, while I
believe in the equity and justice of taxing all property protected by
Government for its support and maintenance, I am free to confess that
I do not believe it practicable, and therefore I would abandon the
effort and tax none. Instead of taxing property, real and personal, to
support the. Government, I would tax incomes. This, after all, is the
fairest and most equitable system of taxation ever devised, and one
that will ultimately prevail in all civilized governments.
Real or personal property may be and often is unproductive, and then
it is a hardship on the owner to pay taxes, but it is never a burden
for a secure and ascertained income to aid in the support of
government which protects the business or industry that yields the
income. True, this system is subject in one respect to your objection
to taxing personal property. It develops dishonesty, perjury, and
villainy ; but no system of taxation can be devised that will avoid
all objections. Therefore, that which will accomplish the purpose with
fewest objections should be adopted.
Response by Bolton Hall to J.G. Shepard
My Dear Sir: I am sure that the interest you exhibit in our movement
justifies me in sending something in reply to your letter of October
2. You say that if the reason we give for direct taxation is a good
one, then all property owners should be subject to direct taxation.
Permit me to say that this is a non sequitur. It is true that direct
taxation, by reason of its being immediately felt, does tend to prompt
the taxpayer's interest in economical government, but it does not
follow on this account that all forms of property, and therefore all
property owners through such forms, should be taxed. There may be
other considerations that make it undesirable to impose direct
taxation upon some sorts of property.
If it were possible to find a method of taxation that should be
absolutely just, then it would be the best method of taxation, whether
it were direct or indirect, and without regard to its special effect
in arousing the tax-payer's interest in good government.
If one were looking around for an ideal object of taxation, one would
be delighted to find some valuable thing properly belonging to all,
but capable of being used at any given time by only a few. Once such
an object should be found, the matter of taxation would be perfectly
simple, for the users of this one good thing, belonging to all, would
be required to pay the community in return for the special privilege
conferred. . As you are aware, Mr. Henry George and his disciples aver
that land is such an object, and their single tax is in effect such a
system of taxation as I have sketched here. Whether Mr. George is
right or wrong I shall not undertake to say, as his proposed single
tax is not yet a political issue. I do hold, however, that our
proposition has in it, at least in part, whatever advantages are
claimed for Mr. George's single tax. For taxation upon real estate, of
course, must fall in part upon land. I believe, therefore, that the
system of taxation that we advocate comes as near to an ideal system
of taxation as anything practicable that has been suggested.
You believe our programme in favor of exempting mortgages from
taxation to be specious. If it be, I should be very glad to have you
point out in what way. Certainly the effect of taxing mortgages would
be to raise the rate of interest, and make it more difficult for
borrowers to obtain money upon mortgages. The lender would surely
shift the burden, and leave it finally upon the shoulder of the
borrower. You insist that to place all taxation upon real estate would
not be to lighten the burden of the farmer or worker. I am glad that
you have attacked this point, because our position is easily
defensible. A tax upon real estate, if justly assessed as we
contemplate, would fall in large part upon highly valuable land, in
and near cities and towns. While the home of the laborer and the land
improvements of the farmer would be taxed, they certainly would not be
taxed more heavily than they now are, and they would probably be
considerably relieved. Meanwhile, the farmer's tools of trade, his
stock and machinery, and his other personal property would be entirely
exempt from taxation. Thus we should avoid the petty annoyances
attendant upon assessing and collecting personal taxes, and also the
discouragement to industry involved in taxes upon capital and upon
tools of trade.
A word as to your proposition for taxing incomes. Experience the
world over shows that an income tax is the ideally unjust tax, for the
reason that it is placed upon only a small part of the community, and
usually in larger proportion upon honest persons of moderate incomes
than upon the rich. Those who argue in favor of an income tax usually
propose to exempt all incomes below $1,000 per annum, and proclaim the
justice of the tax because it is placed upon the rich. In the first
place, I greatly question the justice of assessing any tax with the
special design of exempting a large part of the community from
taxation. In the next place, I deny that income taxes fall mainly upon
the rich. The persons that pay income taxes are the comparatively few
well-to-do or wealthy persons who will honestly answer the questions
of the assessors, and those salaried persons of moderate means whose
incomes are easily ascertainable. The man whose income from various
sources amounts to many thousands and possibly millions of dollars is
never known to pay a tax upon his whole income. It is a notorious
fact, that, wherever the income tax has been tried, perjury has
thriven, and the honest man has paid more than his share of
Governmental expenses. An income tax is open to most of the objections
that apply to a tax upon personal property.
Statement by Prof. Edward W. Bemis, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tenn.
Dear Sir: I should be glad to receive further information from you in
regard to your precise ideal of taxation. In my article in the August
Chautauquan I stated my own platform, which in brief is progressive
income and inheritance taxes, with real estate taxes for county and
municipal purposes, and as much of the Henry George idea as is
involved in a separation of the tax on ground rent and that upon
improvements, but not with the idea of making this, even when joined
to taxes on monopolies of light and transportation, the only tax; for
I agree with Prof. E. R. A. Seligman, of Columbia, in favoring income
taxes, and with Dilke (see his
Problems of Greater Britain) in direct inheritance taxes. And
I believe in sweeping away nearly all our present taxes, such as those
on personal property and most licenses so common in the South on
trade. If this places me with you, all right; but I have an idea you
do not indorse inheritance and income taxes. How is it?
Response by Bolton Hall
My Dear Sir: Your letter in reply to one from this Association has
been read with interest. Your programme of income and inheritance tax,
with real estate for county and municipal purposes, is familiar. One
of the strongest aiguments against an income tax is, that it offers a
premium upon dishonesty. Honest men are honestly assessed under such a
system, while the rogue escapes. I believe this to be an insuperable
objection to an income tax. Another objection is, that such a tax is
to some extent a discouragement to industry. Why fine a man for
earning a large income? Income tax laws usually provide for the
exemption of all incomes below $1,000 per year. Is it just to the able
and honest man who earns two or three or four thousand dollars per
year, that he should be made to pay taxes, while the dishonest man
that earns twice as much, and the idle and inept man that earns
one-fourth as much, go scot free?
As to the tax upon inheritance, why discourage the industry and
economy of parents who wish to provide for their children, or husbands
who would care for wives left alone and self-dependent? Another
objection to an income tax lies in the fact that such tax falls
irregularly and often in large lump sums. Now, nothing is more
desirable in the way of revenue than uniformity and certainty. It is
demoralizing to the State to have its treasury suddenly flooded with a
large sum of money not expected, and possibly at the time not needed.
As to the Henry George idea, it rests upon a well-known scheme of
political and economic philosophy, and whatever may be said in its
favor as an immediate fiscal measure, it is for the present
impracticable^ because no community seems yet prepared for it.
You add that you believe in doing away with nearly all of the present
taxes, such as those on personal property and most license taxes. In
this we heartily agree with you, and I firmly believe that we are
offering the only system of taxation that promises immediate relief
from such vexatious exactions.
Statement by J. B. Unthank, M.N., President Wilmington College,
Wilmington, Ohio
The first plank in your platform I fully indorse, as also the fourth
and fifth, but I am strongly opposed to the second and third planks. I
favor an income tax as being the most direct, fairest, and least
burdensome of all taxes. That capital engaged in profitable enterprise
should be exempt from taxes seems to me a monstrous proposition. All
taxes must be paid out of wages or profits, and of these the latter
ought to bear the heaviest part, since the most wages are only
sufficient to support the wage-earner. To shift taxes from
profit-paying industries to unproductive real estate -- such as
dwellings, for instance - would be an act of oppression and injustice.
If capital were fairly taxed everywhere, how could it run away from
taxes?
Response by Bolton Hall
My Dear Sir: I am glad to learn from your recent letter that you
agree even in part with our platform, and as you do not urge any
objections to planks four and five, I shall not trouble you with
argument upon that subject. You say that you favor an income tax as
the most direct and fair, and least burdensome of all taxation. While
an income tax is certainly a direct tax, I am inclined to think it is
one of the most unfair and one of the most burdensome that can
possibly be imposed. An income tax is dodged in part by every rogue,
and thus the support of the government would fall exclusively on those
too honest to conceal the amount of their incomes. You surely cannot
deny this, and if you acknowledge it you cannot contend that such a
tax is other than unfair and burdensome.
Furthermore, an income tax, as usually administered, is unjust in
other ways. Income tax laws usually exempt incomes below ^1,000 per
annum. I shall say nothing as to the wisdom and justice of relieving
the great mass of the people from the duty of contributing their share
toward the support of the government; but I must call your attention
to the fact that under such a system, the capable, industrious, honest
man who earns two, three, or four thousand dollars per year pays taxes
on his full income, while the rogue earning and receiving ten times as
much goes scot free on much of it, and the indolent or incapable man
earning one-fourth as much escapes with no payment at all. Would you
lay a tax upon honesty, industry, and capability?
You think it is a monstrous principle that capital engaged in private
enterprise should be exempt from taxes, yet you will not deny that it
is highly desirable that capital should engage in such enterprises,
and, having admitted so much, I think you must admit that the State
should impose no unnecessary hindrance to such application of capital.
It is much better that capital sunk in unproductive wealth should be
taxed, than that productive capital should be thus burdened. To shift
capital from profit-paying industries to unproductive real estate,
would be to encourage not only capital but labor as well.
You ask, if capital were fairly taxed how could it run away from
taxation ? It is not quite clear as to what you mean by this query,
but I suppose your idea is that if every State imposed taxes upon
mortgages, bonds, and other intangible forms of capital, none of these
things could escape taxation. Yet, even were all State tax laws
absolutely uniform, it would be exceedingly difficult to prevent men
from concealing such possessions, and if every State in this country
should tax such forms of capital, the effect would only be to drive it
into foreign countries where tax laws are wiser.
Statement by Rev. J. H. Brunner, A.M., D.D., Hiawassee College,
Hiawassee, Tenn., September 1891
Gentlemen: Your circulars have been received and studied. Some of
your views are correct, and some are otherwise. My neighbor has two
sons. To one he gives a farm, and to the other an equal portion in
cash. The former works hard and makes little gain ; the latter works
some and has large gains. Why the former should be heavily taxed and
the latter go scot free, does not appear. Both had equal portions out
of their father's accumulations from honest labor.
Response by Edw. N. Vallandigham (on behalf of Bolton Hall)
Sir: I think you will admit, that whatever scheme of taxation the
Government may establish, it will be difficult to avoid specific cases
of injustice or seeming injustice. I need not tell you that incidental
injustice may be charged against the present system of federal
taxation, whether it be the customs duties or the internal revenue. It
is certainly the duty of the Government to frame its laws in such a
way as to avoid, if possible, unjust taxation. But surely the
Government cannot undertake to consider the misfortunes of
individuals.
If the farmer worked hard and did not prosper, either himself or his
crops suffered from the act of Providence, or he lacked foresight in
the prosecution of his business, or failed of such financial ability
as was necessary to insure success. All this was not the fault of the
Government. If the other son succeeded, it must have been by reason of
good luck or management, neither of which can be considered by the
Government in laying taxes ; certainly the good management should not
be a reason for imposing an extra fine or tax. But that some farmers
fail after hard work, and some financiers succeed probably with little
toil, does not prove any general rule touching these two classes. As a
matter of fact, it is probably true that there are more successful
farmers, in proportion to the population, than successful financiers.
You will pardon me if I say that in my opinion you have not
successfully attacked the proposition we advocate. If you feel
sufficient interest in the subject to continue the discussion, I shall
be very glad to hear from you again.
Statement by Rev. Peter Mc Vicar, D.D., President Washburn
College, Topeka, Kan., 30 September, 1891
Dear Sir: Your favor of the 24th is received. The reform you advocate
is yet in an incipient state. That some modifications in our present
system are needed, no one can doubt. But how far the modifications
should be carried, is the question which, I confess, is not yet
clearly defined in my own mind. My judgment is that the mortgages and
the land mortgaged should share in meeting the taxation. Why should a
man who really owns but a fourth interest in land pay four- fourths of
the tax levied?
Response by Bolton Hall to Prof. A. E. Rogers, State College,
Orono, Me.
Dear Sir: You take exception to our principle of exempting mortgages
from taxation. The effect of taxing mortgages would be to make it more
difficult for owners of land to obtain money upon such security, and,
of course, to raise the rate of interest upon mortgages. In this way
the tax would be shifted from the holder of the mortgage to the owner
of the land. How are you going outside the State jurisdiction to
collect a tax from the holder of a mortgage? You would have to collect
it upon the interest which the borrower pays, and you may be very
sure, that if such a tax went into operation, the lenders of money
would see to it that the rate of interest should be fixed so as to
make up to them for whatever the State intercepted on its way from the
borrower to the lender. As you do not discuss any other point in our
programme, I shall not trouble you with an argument upon the whole
subject, but I shall be glad to hear anything you may have to say upon
the subject of taxation.
Response by William McCabe, Ass't Secretary, New York Tax Reform
Association to unnamed recipient
Dear Sir: Your claim that the greater part of the real estate of our
land is held by farmers is both right and wrong. If you claim that
they hold the largest proportion of the real estate of this country in
acres or feet, you are right; but if you claim that the real estate
held by them exceeds the value of the real estate of the cities, you
are wrong.
It is a common error, nursed by men whose hearts warm to the farmers,
that this form of taxation will weigh more heavily upon them than upon
any other class of the people of our country. I have no statistics at
hand ; have only a book of reference, the Legislative Manual of the
State of New York, and yet I find this : in Albany County, in which
agricultural pursuits are carried on to the very smallest extent, I
find the real estate values taxes $93,500,000 ; Erie County,
$179,000,000; Kings County, $445,000,000; New York County,
$1,400,000,000, making a total of $2,117,500,000. The valuation of the
entire real estate of this State, according to the assessment rolls,
is $3,400,000,000, so that these urban counties have real estate of
two-thirds the value of all the real estate there is within this
State.
As to acreage, I find that Albany County has 304,185 acres; Erie
County, 612,846 ; in Kings and New York counties the values have gone
way beyond any acreage assessment, but it would be safe to say that in
the two counties there are not more than 250,000 acres. The acreage of
the entire State, subject to taxation, is about 28,000,000 acres, and
there you have it. One-twenty-eighth of the acreage of the State is
paying two-thirds of the taxes. Were a just system to prevail, and
personal property taxes to be abolished, these same urban acres would
pay still more ; and were justice done in assessing real estate in the
interior, the tax rate of all who put their real estate to productive
use would be decreased. I intend to ask a high statistical authority
to give me the statistics of real estate values, urban and suburban,
in the whole United States, and when I have obtained the information I
will take great pleasure in forwarding it to you ; for you can point
out, as an answer to the figures that I have given you, that I am
using as a basis the most populous State in the Union, and, in the
event of that having come into your mind, I beg to assert that it can
be demonstrated beyond a peradventure that the average will remain the
same in every State in the Union, for the reason that, where the urban
population is small, the suburban population is also small, and there
is a larger quantity of land that has absolutely no value because of
the absence of population.
You are carried away by another prevalent error, that personal
property is mainly in the hands of the wealthy. If you mean to say by
that that stocks, bonds, diamonds, and articles of luxury are in the
hands of the wealthy, you are right; but these are not all that is
included under the head of personal property. Mortgages are included
under that head, and especially mortgages on farms. Now, the money
that is used for that purpose does not come from the wealthy. They
know how to invest their money to better advantage. The money invested
in mortgages throughout the United States is the savings of people who
work for wages. A Wall Street operator is not content to let his money
draw him from five to eight per cent.; he wants from thirty to a
hundred per cent., and takes chances.
The other forms of personal property that I think you have not in
mind are those things classed under the necessities of the people -
food, clothing, and such. While we hoist up the bugaboo of the
personal property that the wealthy hold in the shape of their bonds,
stocks, etc., the superficial students of affairs remain entirely
ignorant of the fact that the necessities which come under the heading
of personal property out-value all these bonds, stocks, etc., every
year.
In New York County we are assessed on $220,000,000 of personal
property. We have, as a matter of fact, about $1,500,000,000 of
taxable personal property, mostly hidden. That $1,500,000,000
represents an average of $1,000 to each man, woman, and child. The
personal property in the shape alone of the food we consume is about
equal every day to the highest figure that has been set on the
valuation of all forms of personal property. Then, what folly it is
for men to go round giving expression to their views as to the wrong
the abolition of personal property taxes would do the farmers - men
who have given but a casual thought to the subject, many of them being
professors of universities.
You ask whether or not a man's farm or market garden is not a form of
capital engaged in production. There is no economist accepted to-day
who would intimate that a man's farm or "market garden" is a
form of capital engaged in production. A man's farm or his market
garden can do nothing without the assistance or the help of the man's
labor. The product of that man's labor applied to his farm or market
garden results in a form of capital ; or, as economists would put it,
wealth that may be used for further production.
I pass a portion of your letter until I reach the point where you
advise us vigorously to enforce our own laws and bring personal
property to the surface. The inference there is that you would go back
to the days of the robber barons, the days of the rack and the
thumb-screw, when that method of taxation had reached a point where a
man would be perfectly honest in certifying to his wealth and yet
could be made under pressure to swear to twenty times that wealth for
purposes of taxation. We have gone beyond that time. The robbers who
rob us now have to do so through legislation, or else we put them in
jail. The vassal of a baron cannot order us up to the castle for the
purpose of swearing to anything that the baron would have us swear to.
I say we have passed that stage, and I don't think intelligent public
opinion will permit any legislation that looks to going back to the
methods of those "good old times." The French people are far
ahead of Americans in that matter. They have given up trying to assess
personal property, for they have discovered, as I told you in my last
letter, that personal property reflects a value upon real estate that
can thus be reached; and while their method of reaching it is rather
clumsy, still they do reach it in this way: If a man hires premises,
say in the city of Paris, for which he agrees to pay a thousand francs
a year, the authorities thereby presume, that, as he can afford to
live in such premises, he must be worth so much money, and they tax
him on the amount that they think he is worth on that basis.
You are carried away with the mistaken impression that existed in
Cardinal McCloskey's mind up to the day of his death ; viz., that land
was to be taxed according to its area and not according to its value.
I remember reading of the celebrated case in which he called upon one
of his parish priests to explain why he advocated a tax that would
result in cutting up the land of the city of New York into little
bits.
I attempted at one time to convert a good old moss-backed countryman
to this idea. I argued with him for nearly three years and then
converted him suddenly one day by accident. He was visiting me in this
city, and I took him for a walk. We passed the Madison Square Garden,
and he seemed so impressed with its magnificence that we stayed there
looking and walking around it for nearly half an hour ; finally his
admiration found words, and, farmer-like, he wanted to know what it
was worth. He was a resident of Sullivan County, and I told him that
that block with the building on it was worth more than the entire real
estate and personal property value of the whole of Sullivan County;
that, whereas you could not ride on horseback from one end of Sullivan
County to the other in two days, you could walk around this piece of
property in five minutes, and yet it was worth more than all the
property he could ride over in two days. It made an impression on him
which did not find expression in words until he got home, when he
wrote me saying that he saw the point at last.
I believe it to be only necessary to bring our farmer friends down to
this city, and show them one city block after another that is worth
more than the entire county they live in, to convert them to our way
of thinking. But the funds of this association will not permit of that
form of procedure.
Statement by R. E. Thompson, 23 June 1891
My Dear Sir : I thank you for the copy of your association's
statement of principles. It is one which I can indorse very heartily,
except at one point. I would alter the third article to read, "Real
estate and incomes should bear," etc. I fail to see why a rich
man should be allowed to exempt himself from the direct payment of
taxes by abstaining from investments in land and houses ; and I am not
clear that taxes on land and houses will so distribute themselves as
to reach all classes in proportion to the amount of the protection
they receive from the State, and also to their ability to pay for that
protection.
Statement by Edwin R. A. Seligman
Dear Sir : Your letter addressed to President Low, as well as the one
intended for the Quarterly, have been handed to me for reply. I would
say that point one in the platform meets my approval, looked at from
the theoretic point of view.
If point two means that personal property should be exempt, I agree.
But as to mortgages, I believe that they should be assessed to the
mortgagee as real property, as is done in California. Point three
would meet my approval if the word "local" were inserted
before the word "taxation." But the last part of the
sentence I do not agree with. I do not think it can be proven that
they bear least heavily on the farmer. The remainder of the platform
is, of course, self-evident, and therefore meets with my approval. But
I would say that, on the whole, I consider your platform a little too
negative. There should be more positive, constructive assertion in it.
Statement by Richard T. Ely
My Dear Sir: I am much interested in your letter of the 5th inst.,
but am unable to indorse your tax reform platform.
I do not accept it entirely as it stands, and I feel very confident
that I should be unable to approve of any practical application which
might grow out of it. I am not entirely opposed to the taxation of
capital engaged in production, and do not believe that it necessarily
drives capital away.
Statement by Woodrow Wilson, College of New Jersey, Princeton,
December 1891
Dear Sir: On the whole, I very heartily indorse the above platform.
Response by Arthur T. Hadley to Bolton Hall
Dear Sir : I beg to assure you, in behalf of the department of
political economy at Yale, of our hearty sympathy in your efforts to
secure intelligent discussion of the subject of tax reform.
Statement by H. M. MacCracken, University of the City of New
York, September 22, 1891
My Dear Sir : Since it was my lot in past years to lecture upon
political economy, and to take a lively interest in civics, I am quite
inclined to give an opinion on your platform, and that a favorable
one.
I regard the system of municipal taxes in most of the States with
which I am acquainted, as inexpedient from an economic point of view,
and very objectionable from an ethical standpoint. Matters would be
greatly improved if your platform could be adopted and faithfully
carried out.
Statement by Charles W. Eliot, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass., October 17, 1891
Dear Sir: I agree with the platform of the New York Tax Reform
Association, and heartily with the association's success in
enlightening the public mind concerning the whole subject of taxation.
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