166 



like you may vote against it; if you like it, vote for it. Mr. Abbott, Chair- 

 man of the Committee on Resolutions. 



Mr. ABBOTT: MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN: If a Rip Van Winkle 

 had been asleep for twenty years and woke up and was presented with the 

 resolutions that have come before your committee he would be struck with 

 the idea, if he were of a discriminating mind, that we just passed through a 

 great crisis in the matter of taxation and rates, and that reduction of 

 expenses was uppermost in our minds. Practically all the resolutions that 

 have come to us had a bearing on those subjects. Mr. Vrooman told us last 

 night that any thought, any idea expressed here would have its influence 

 in the remotest places of the earth, and with that in mind we have a few 

 resolutions. 



I will explain briefly some of these clauses that we have left out. You 

 know when we pay our taxes we pay them in spring, and it takes a whole 

 year for those taxes to be expended. Somebody has that money and some- 

 body may draw the interest on it, or it is lying in the bank. It has been 

 suggested, and I think it is a good plan, that we have the privilege of paying 

 our taxes twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. 



TAXATION. 



Resolved, That we favor a change in the Illinois Tax Laws, providing 



for payment of taxes in equal semi-annual installments. 



Resolved, That we oppose a Sales Tax Law in every form for any 



purpose. 



Mr. HURDMAN: I would like to ask the gentleman what objection 

 there is to that law. 



Mr. ABBOTT: The farmer would have to pay a tax on everything he 

 sells and he would have to pay a tax on everything he buys from the mer- 

 chant or manufacturer. They would have added the tax to the article -and 

 the farmer would pay that, too. The farmer cannot add it to what he has 

 to sell, but he would pay it coming and going, both ways. 



Mr. HURDMAN: If I understand it, the basic idea of the Sales Tax 

 Law is that the producer in whatsoever line does not pay the initial tax. 

 The man that raises a thousand bushels of corn and sells it will not pay a 

 tax on that corn; the man that produces a thousand barrels of oil will not 

 pay the tax on that oil, or the man that produces a thousand tons of coal 

 does not pay the tax on the coal. 



Mr. ABBOTT: Aren't they dodging the tax, then, if they do not pay it? 



Mr. HURDMAN: The producer in whatsoever line is not taxed the 

 initial tax. 



Mr. ABBOTT: That may be the theory, but how can a farmer sell 

 anything but what they take the tax out in the reduction of the price at 

 which he sells? He can't fix the price of the commodity. 



Mr. HURDMAN: Does that not depend entirely upon whether prices are 

 fixed, as they are, by the oil seller or the manufacturer? Now, if oil is 

 selling for 20 cents a gallon and the tax is added it sells for 21 cents. If 

 corn sells at 50 cents a bushel and the tax is added the man who sells it 

 gets 49 cents. 



Mr. ABBOTT: That is the way it goes, as the committee found it. The 

 farmer would be the man that would bear the burden of the tax. 



GOVERNMENT ECONOMY. 



WHEREAS, The expense of local, county, state, and national govern- 

 ments is increasing at an alarming rate much faster than the ability 

 of the people to pay taxes therefore, be it 



Resolved, That we demand that all public officers exercise the utmost 

 diligence in reducing public expense; and be it further 



Resolved, That we condemn the creation of new Boards and Com- 

 missions, pensioning and paternalism with an army of expensive 

 deputies, agents, investigators, inspectors, and non-essential official 

 parasites. 



