CONGRESS. (TAX REDUCTION.) 



1T3 



four hundred, whose five o'clock teas are losing 

 their pinkish tint on account of the extra 10 

 cents a pound put on tea by the war-revenue act. 



" Right here and now, Mr. Chairman. I desire to 

 call the attention of the members of this House 

 to a few scientific facts. Prof. Johnstone says 

 that ' tea exhilarates without sensibly intoxicat- 

 ing.' The beverage doing that is a good beverage 

 and is entitled to such legislation as will give the 

 people the greatest amount of it for the least 

 money. Prof. Johnstone also says that ' tea ex- 

 cites the brain, increases activity, and produces 

 wakefulness.' Now, the beverage doing that is 

 good for a Congressman to drink in large quan- 

 tities, and should be as cheap as possible. For 

 the sake of his constituents a Congressman needs 

 a clear brain and lots of activity, and for his own 

 sake he needs some beverage to keep him awake 

 during some of the ponderous Websterian speeches 

 in this House, and for this reason, again, am 1 in 

 favor of cutting down the tax on tea. 



" Moreover, Mr. Chairman, it needs no argu- 

 mentation to prove that the ladies of our land 

 young maids, old maids, and housewives are in 

 favor of reducing this tax on tea. The young 

 maids because it makes cheaper the beverage of 

 their society sprees and social tcte-a-tctcs; the 

 old maids and God bless them, for Robert Louis 

 Stevenson was right when he called them the 

 dearest dears on earth because it makes less ex- 

 pensive their matutinal sipping and their night- 

 cap quaffing of the drink that makes them dream 

 of those saddest words of tongue or pen, ' It might 

 have been ' ; and the housewives, as one of them 

 wrote me the day before yesterday, because the 

 tea-leaves with which she keeps down the dust 

 when she sweeps her parlor carpet are costing too 

 much, and the tax on leaves used to keep down 

 the dust ought to be lowered, instead of a tax 

 being kept on to raise ' the dust ' for a useless 

 surplus. 



" Do not think, Mr. Chairman, I am trying to 

 make a funny speech, but if any comparison can 

 serve to show the inconsistency of some of the 

 reductions proposed in this bill I do not intend 

 to hesitate in making use of them. Just think of 

 it! The proposition is made to abolish the $100 

 tax placed on the proprietors of a circus, and to 

 keep the tax of 10 cents a pound on tea. In 

 other words, the committee proposes to take the 

 tax off the elephant that ' walks around the ring ' 

 and the monkey that ' chatters in the cage,' and 

 to keep the tax on the cup of tea consumed at 

 meals. No one has heard of the price of admis- 

 sion to circuses being raised by the war-tax, and 

 even if it were the people could stand it, for the 

 circus, like Christmas, comes but once a year, 

 while tea time comes three times a day. If we need 

 revenue, would it not be well to keep the tax on 

 circuses, and to place it on things like the circus, 

 and allow tea to go free. 



" Yes, Mr. Chairman, between tea and the cir- 

 cus, I am in favor of tea., and I want to remind 

 those who differ with me that part of the revenue 

 we lose on free tea will come back to us through 

 the tax which we have lately placed on oleomar- 

 garine. This House did a good thing for the farm- 

 ing interests of the country when it voted to place 

 a tax on oleo. It would duplicate this good act 

 by doing something to relieve the tax on tea. 



" It is useless to contend that the tea trade of 

 the country is in favor of this tax being kept on 

 tea. Why, sir, nearly every tea merchant and 

 wholesale grocer in my district has petitioned me 

 to urge an abolition of the tax on tea. Does that 

 look as if the 'tea trade of the country is in favor 

 of the tax? 



" Only this morning, sir, T m-f-ivcd n letter from 

 a large tea importer in which he states I hut a con- 

 tinuation of this tax will ruin his hu-incss, arid 

 urges a fight for the reduction of the lax. Docs 

 that look as if the trade favored the l;i\ on tea? 

 Do the people want it, think you, gentlemen of 

 the majority of the Ways and Means Committee? 

 Is any one of you bold enough to contend ih;it the 

 people at large are in favor of this tax? If so v,u 

 are brave enough to argue that the people are 

 anxious to pay 10 cents a pound more for tci 

 than they would have to pay for it were this 

 tax abolished. This tax was imposed as a war 

 measure. 



" The majority tell us that the war is over. If it 

 is, the war-tax should go, especially upon the arti- 

 cles consumed the most by the masses in every- 

 day life. As a nation we are crying for trade 

 with China and Japan, but yet we persist in pla- 

 cing a large tax upon the article of which they 

 raise most, of which we raise little or none, and 

 which our people use every day of .their lives. It 

 is proposed to do away with the* taxes on pro- 

 prietary medicines, telephone and telegraph mes- 

 sages, bank checks, bills of exchange, etc.; it is 

 proposed to reduce the tax on beer. 



" Of all these am I in favor. In fact, I w r ould 

 go further than this bill proposes to go in the 

 reduction of the tax on beer. Every fair-minded 

 person must admit that beer is paying a pretty 

 heavy proportion of taxation. Outside of the 

 war-tax added for the Spanish W T ar beer pays into 

 the United States Treasury $40,000,000 a year. 

 On account of the additional Spanish War tax 

 beer has lately been paying a tax of $80,000.000 

 a sum which is one-third of the whole war-tax and 

 one-fourth of the internal-revenue taxes. Beer 

 undoubtedly should pay a large tax, but it seems 

 hardly fair that any one industry should be 

 obliged to bear such a large share of taxation. 

 Now, as to tea, Mr. Chairman, I believe in abol- 

 ishing the tax completely. But some of the gen- 

 tlemen of this House argue that we need the 

 revenue produced by the tax on tea. I contend 

 that we have no such need. 



" At the present time this country has an an- 

 nual excess of revenue of $80,000,000 above the 

 present immense expenditures, a reserve fund of 

 $150,000,000, and a balance of $140,000,000 in the 

 Treasury. With this grand showing there is no 

 necessity for keeping the war-taxes as high as the 

 majority contend. Moreover, Mr. Chairman, it 

 should be remembered, when considering the pro- 

 visions of this bill, that the surplus in the Treas- 

 ury would have been increased $20,000,000 or $30,- 

 000,000 more were it not for the large amount 

 paid out of the Treasury during the past six 

 months. We should abolish all possible of these 

 war-taxes not only to relieve the people, but also 

 to prevent a piling up in the Treasury of current 

 funds which should be in circulation for the good 

 of the business interests of the country. 



" Now, Mr. Chairman, if this bill becomes a law 

 in its present shape, its friends admit that on 

 June 30, 1902, there will be a surplus in the United 

 States Treasury of $206,000,000. This seems to 

 be conservatism run wild. A surplus, and a fair 

 one, we should have at all times, but at no time 

 should it be allowed to grow so large that its 

 creating is a burden upon the people, and a useless 

 withdrawal into the United States Treasury of 

 money that ought to be in circulation through 

 the business channels of the country. It has been 

 said that the people less governed are the best 

 governed, and this assertion is most forceful when 

 applied to the payment of taxes. The less of them 

 the better, and only so much of them as is neces- 



