22 THE GRANGER MOVEMENT 



delusion when the agricultural production was continually in 

 excess of the needs of that market. 1 



Upon the subject of taxation the farmers made many com- 

 plaints, and some of these were well founded. 2 The American 

 people were undoubtedly carrying a very large burden of taxa- 

 tion in the period following the war, the causes of which are to 

 be sought in the great public debts incurred for the conduct of 

 the war and for the assistance of railroads and other internal 

 improvements, 3 and in the carelessness, extravagance, and cor- 

 ruption of public administration. Not only was the aggregate 

 per capita taxation, national, state, and local, unusually high, 

 but its incidence was far from being arranged in proportion to 

 the ability to pay. In regard to the national taxation, which 

 was almost wholly indirect, this was particularly true because 

 so much of the revenue was derived from articles of common 

 consumption by the mass of the people. For example, prac- 

 tically one-half of the customs revenue was levied on the impor- 

 tation of sugar, molasses, and woolen and cotton goods, which 

 are consumed by everyone in very similar proportions. In 

 like manner the internal revenue duties on tobacco and liquors 

 bore with greatest severity on the cheaper grades of the product. 

 Thus an undue share of the taxes for the support of the national 

 government and the payment of its enormous war debt was 



1 Peffer, The Farmer's Side, 129-147; Cloud, Monopolies and the People, 239- 

 247; Carr, Patrons of Husbandry, 392-412; Elliot, American Farms, 90-109, 119- 

 131, 138; Flagg, in American Social Science Journal, vi. no (July, 1874). 



2 Flagg, " Revenue," an address in Illinois State Grange, Proceedings, iv. 60-74 

 (1875); Carr, Patrons of Husbandry, 411; Spahr, Distribution of Wealth, 346; Elliot, 

 American Farms, 141-144; A. H. Peters, " The Depreciation of Farming Land," 

 in Quarterly Journal of Economics, iv. 22 (October, 1889); Nation, xvi. 381 (June 

 5, 1873) ; New York Commission to revise the laws for the assessment and collection 

 of taxes, Report, 1871; D. A. Wells, Rational Principles of Taxation, in American 

 Social Science Association, Transactions, 1874; Patron's Bulletin (Kentucky), 

 December, 1876 (Master's address to the state grange). 



3 As an indication of the part played by the railway in the increase of public 

 indebtedness, it might be noted that in Illinois in 1869, the state auditor reported 

 an aggregate local debt, county, city, town, and township, of thirty-nine 

 million dollars, forty-eight per cent of which consisted of railroad obligations. 

 Illinois State Auditor, Reports, 1869, pp. 93-98; Flagg, in Illinois State Grange, 

 Proceedings, iv. 69 (1875). 



