PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 521 



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early experience, compel or permit the Jew to enter the money 

 market, and submit, without let or hindrance, his transactions to the 

 " higher law " of trade and political economy. But a class yet exist 

 who would persecute a Jew if he is a money lender, and they regret 

 that the good old times of roasting him have passed away. They take 

 delight in applying against him, in taxation, rules of evidence ad- 

 missible in no court since witches have ceased to be tried and con- 

 demned. They sigh at the suggestion that all inquisitions shall be 

 abolished; they consider oaths, the rack, the iron boot, and the 

 thumbscrew as the visible manifestations of equality. They would 

 tax primarily everything to the lowest atom; first for national pur- 

 poses, and then for State and local purposes, through separate boards 

 of assessors. They would require every other man to be an assessor or 

 collector, and it is not probable that the work could then be accom- 

 plished with accuracy. The average consumption of every adult in- 

 habitant of the United States is at least two hundred dollars annu- 

 ally, or in the aggregate $1,500,000,000; and this immense amount 

 would fail to be taxed if the assessment was made at the end of the 

 year, and not daily, as fast as consumption followed production. All 

 this complicated machinery of infinitesimal taxation and mediaeval 

 inquisition is to be brought into requisition for the purpose of taxing 

 " money property/' which is nothing but a myth. The money 

 lender parts with his property to the borrower, who puts it in the 

 form of new buildings, or other improvements, upon which he pays 

 a tax. Is not one assessment on the same property sufficient? But 

 if you insist upon another assessment on the money lender, it re- 

 quires no prophetic power to predict that he will add the tax in his 

 transactions with the borrower. If a tax of ten per cent was levied 

 and enforced on every bill of goods, or note given for goods, the tax 

 would be added to the price of goods, and how would this form of 

 tax be different from the tax on the goods? 



" Money property," except in coin, is imaginary, and can not ex- 

 ist. There are rights to property of great value. The right to in- 

 herit property is valuable; and a mortgage on land is a certificate of 

 right or interest in the property, but it is not the property. Land 

 under lease is as much " money property " as a mortgage on the 

 same land; both will yield an income of money. Labor will com- 

 mand money, and is a valuable power to acquire property, but is not 

 property. If we could make property by making debts, it can not be 

 doubted that a national debt would be a national blessing. Attack- 

 ing the bugbear of " money property " is an assault on all property; 

 for " money property " is the mere representative of property. If 

 we tax the representative, the tax must fall upon the thing repre- 

 sented. 



