732 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



other purposes " (passed August 28, 1894) was under consideration 

 by the United States Senate, and pending a proposition to in- 

 crease the revenue by increasing a tax of about G80 per cent on the 

 average prime cost of distilled spirits to a rate of nearly 825 per 

 cent, a Senator, apparently utterly oblivious that the subject 

 involved had years before been thoroughly considered by the 

 United States Treasury Department and declared to be imprac- 

 ticable, submitted a motion permitting the use of alcohol in the 

 arts, or in medicinal or other like compounds, without the pay- 

 ment of any internal revenue tax. The motion in question, after 

 a very brief consideration, was accepted and incorporated in the 

 laws of the United States. The result was that the Secretary 

 of the Treasury reported that in default of any appropriation to 

 defray the expenses of administering the act, and an unsuccessful 

 attempt to frame regulations which would protect the Govern- 

 ment, the Treasury Department was constrained to abandon the 

 effort and await further action by Congress. It was also esti- 

 mated that the expense to the Government of attempting to ad- 

 minister the act would probably be not less than one million 

 dollars per annum; that the loss of revenue contingent on its 

 enforcement would be about ten million dollars yearly, and that 

 the loss of revenue from an increased opportunity for illicit and 

 fraudulent practice would also be very considerable. 



Under such circumstances Congress, in 1895, repealed the act of 

 exemption, but subsequently a strenuous effort has been made to 

 re-enact it. The main argument adduced in its favor is that the 

 present cost of alcohol would be largely reduced, whereby certain 

 industries which use it as a raw material would be greatly bene- 

 fited. That such a result would be in accordance with a general 

 economic principle can not be disputed, and, such being the case, 

 the question is pertinent. Why limit the exemption to the one 

 material, alcohol ? Why not equally grant exemption to manu- 

 facturers who use wool, coal, the various ores and metals, crude 

 tobacco and the like, as raw materials ? 



As already pointed out, the taxation of distilled spirits consti- 

 tutes the largest single source of national revenue, and as such, 

 its consideration by legislators, more especially in view of the 

 present fiscal necessities of the Government, ought to be strictly 

 limited to the one point of ascertaining its greatest availability 

 for revenue. The existing tax of 800 per cent on proof spirits and 

 more than 1,200 per cent on its derivative, alcohol, constitutes a 

 temptation to evade payments which human nature as ordinarily 

 constituted can not withstand. Illicit distillation is admitted to 

 be on the increase in the country, and American ingenuity has 

 been active in facilitating it. It is now proposed to further 

 increase temptation by offering an approximate profit of two 



