8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



subject. Each one, indeed, seems to argue to himself that " as gov- 

 ernment and society went on very well without thought or care 

 of mine during the first twenty years of my life, they will un- 

 doubtedly so continue during my manhood." And if they eventu- 

 ally become public functionaries, their tendencies, conjoined with 

 not having inherited or acquired the value-perceiving faculty, are 

 toward extravagance and waste in governmental matters. What 

 would have been saved to the people of the United States since 

 the beginning of the civil war through wise methods of taxation 

 is almost beyond conception. The loss to the Federal Govern- 

 ment during the single year 1864, when revenue was most needed 

 on account of the war, through a needless imperfection of the 

 law imposing taxes on the single item of distilled spirits, was 

 proved to have been in excess of $50,000,000. 



In short, it is a most singular idiosyncrasy of the American 

 people, and perhaps the people of all other countries, that they 

 will defer or neglect the study of the most vital question which 

 can concern a citizen. Probably not more than one citizen out 

 of a hundred, even among those who pay taxes, can be induced, 

 as a rule, either to talk about, think about, or study how much 

 national Government costs him per annum, or how much his 

 State or local government costs. And as long as this is the situa- 

 tion, and until the American citizen does become a student of 

 taxation, it is difficult to see how the national and State govern- 

 ments can be wisely and justly managed. 



Of the utter lack of comprehension of the results of what may 

 be termed everyday experiences of taxation, coupled with a gen- 

 eral indifference to the subject, which often characterizes Ameri- 

 can legislators, even such as are popularly regarded and spoken 

 of as statesmen, the following incidents will abundantly illustrate : 

 Pending a recent presidential election, a distinguished member of 

 the Senate of the United States, and also of the American bar, 

 assured a popular audience that the people of the single State of 

 Illinois paid a larger amount in taxes to the Federal Govern- 

 ment than were paid by all the people of the former Confederate 

 States. Such a statement was obviously made on the assumption 

 that because the State of Illinois annually manufactured a very 

 large amount of distilled spirits, the burden of a very heavy tax 

 on the same rested upon its people ; when a very little thought 

 would have shown that the manufacturers of the spirits incor- 

 porated the tax in the market price of their product, and that the 

 payment of the same fell entirely upon the people who consumed 

 them, who were not in the main the people of Illinois. If this 

 was not the case, the manufacturers of Illinois paid and assumed 

 a tax obligation of ninety cents a gallon for the privilege of making 

 whiskey costing and worth an average of but thirteen cents per gal- 



