658 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



duty is exhibited in making- taxpayers do theirs. One of the mul- 

 titude of phans suggested is a single tax on land; but that does 

 not seem promising, for it woiild not prevent the discriminations 

 that assessors make — discriminations that Mr. Koberts himself be- 

 lieves to be beyond the reach of even State supervision. Another 

 is a more rigid enforcement of the personal-property tax; but this 

 is equally unpromising. " The fact is," says Mr. Roberts, " that 

 from the dawn of civilization the wit of man has failed to dis- 

 cover a plan by which intangible personal property could be made 

 to pay its share of taxation, and it will never be made to pay on 

 the ordinary assessment plan." Besides the increase of taxes on 

 corporations, the taxation of franchises, which has just been author- 

 ized, and a general revision and simplification of tax laws, it has 

 been proposed that a graded inheritance tax be adopted. Mr. Rob- 

 erts is particularly enamored of this idea. But his advocacy of it 

 betrays the same disregard of the rights of others, and leads to the 

 same appeals to specious facts and arguments that always accom- 

 pany the commission of aggression in politics as well as in war. 

 His reasoning is that since " special privileges conferred by gov- 

 ernment," such as tariif laws, corporation laws, public franchises, 

 etc., are '' the foundation of most of the great fortunes of the coun- 

 try to-day " ; since these fortunes are, to a considerable extent, 

 " composed of personal property " that " very largely escapes taxa- 

 tion"; since the decedent has been "allowed the use and enjoy- 

 ment of his fortune during life," and the beneficiary simply pays 

 " a fee for the privilege of receiving an estate in the creation of 

 which he had little or no hand "; and, finally, since he can make 

 no just complaint against the payment of such a fee, as his right 

 to receive his fortune " comes from the State — is by the grace of 

 the State " — the seizure at death of a certain percentage of all 

 estates beyond a prescribed amount would be only justice to " the 

 mass of small landowners and taxpayers who have from year to 

 year borne more than their equitable share of the burden of taxa- 

 tion." But the fallacies of such an argument are easily exposed. 

 The moral ownership of property does not lie in the State; it lies 

 in the labor and skill of the man that accumulated the property. 

 The moral title to a bequest does not lie in that fiction either; it 

 lies in the right of the decedent to do whatever he pleases with 

 his owm. If gi'eat fortunes have been unjustly acquired in conse- 

 quence of special privileges a great wrong has been committed, 

 and it is not righted by the commission of another wrong. The 

 only reparation that can be made is to abolish the privileges. So 

 obvious a suggestion does not, however, appear to have occurred to 

 Mr. Roberts. 



