742 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



From tins weight of tradition and precedent the United States has 

 been almost entirely free, and it was possible to constrnct out of small 

 beginnings systems of Federal and State taxation at least reasonable 

 and consistent, producing an increasing revenue with the rapid de- 

 velopment of wealth and the larger number of taxable objects; and 

 so elastic as to adapt themselves to such changes as are inevitable in any 

 progressive movement of commerce or industry. That no such sys- 

 tem has resulted after a century of national life, and an even longer 

 term of local (colonial and State) activities, these papers have tended 

 to show. That the time is at hand when the problem of a thorough 

 reform of both State and Federal taxation must be met, current facts 

 prove beyond any doubt. If I have aided in a proper comprehen- 

 sion of these problems, and, by collecting certain experiences in taxa- 

 tion among other peoples and in different stages of civilization, con- 

 tributed toward a proper solution, the end of this work will have been 

 attained. It is not possible to introduce a complete change of policy 

 at once; it is not only feasible but necessary to indicate the direction 

 this change should take, and the ends to be secured in making them. 

 And first as to Federal taxation: 



In a democracy like that of the United States, the continuance 

 of a mixed system of direct and indirect taxes is a foregone conclu- 

 sion. Not that there is an absence of change or modification in the 

 details of this double system, or in the application or distribution of a 

 particular impost or duty. To deny such modification is to deny any 

 movement in the body politic, or any progress in the industrial and 

 commercial economy of the people. There is a steady and continu- 

 ous movement in every direction, and the mere effort to escape taxa- 

 tion results in a new adjustment of related facts. This development 

 has, partly through necessity and partly through a rising conscious- 

 ness of what a tax implies, been tending from indirect to direct 

 taxes. Ever restive under a rigid supervision by the state of private 

 concerns, there has been a wholesome opposition to inquisitorial taxes. 

 But this opposition has been carried too far, and is due more to the 

 ignorant and at times brutal disregard by the agents selected for en- 

 forcing the law than to an appreciation of the injustice of the tax. 

 Whether in customs or excise, the same blunders of management 

 have been committed, and created a spirit in the people that is injuri- 

 ous to their best interests. On the one hand, private enterprises have 

 been unduly favored by the removal of foreign competition, a favor 

 that is now disappearing through the remarkable development of 

 domestic competition. Thus taxes have been extensively used for 

 other purposes than to obtain revenue, and for private ends. On 

 the other hand, there has been created the feeling that taxation is 

 a proper instrument for effecting a more equal distribution of 



