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The state, by taking exclusive jurisdiction over the taxation of the gross income from business done within the state, compensates itself for relinquishing its share of land taxes for the benefit of taxing districts nearest to the people. This removes all necessity for an equalization of land values and taxation between the townships, villages, cities and counties, or other taxing districts.

The power to tax gross incomes should reside in the government that is equipped with the authority to require an accounting that will truly disclose the full amount of the income to be taxed. In the case of corporations doing business only within a state, the state is the logical taxing authority, and when the business is interstate it is the national government. By giving the income from this tax exclusively to the state or naion, the expensive and unsatisfactory system of apportioning the proceeds of the tax among minor divisions is avoided. Corporations will have but one bill to settle, other than their land tax. Knowing the rate, they can check for the amount of the tax and be free from further expense.

A sound public policy requires that taxation of gross income shall have a fixed relation to the prices charged to users for public services. If these prices are sufficiently low, so that they yield only a reasonable profit on a bona fide investment, there should be no taxation of gross income. On the other hand, if it is uncertain whether or not the net income is more than sufficient

to pay such a profit, the taxation of gross income should be sufficient to reduce the net income to a reasonable profit. Used in this way, the gross income tax will become a regulator of prices for services, and the means of causing advantages from unearned increments to revert to the general welfare, while preserving to the corporation a net income sufficient to pay a reasonable profit. Under this system the people will derive the greatest possible advantage from the services rendered. by corporations.

A LESSON FROM SAN FRANCISCO.

The retrospective view of "San Francisco Follies," given by Mr. Symmes in the Merchants' Association Review of that city, may be studied with profit by the people of other cities and some states. Men with brains and men with money cannot be attracted to or retained in any city by antagonism. It is an error to suppose such men demand more than can be justly conceded to them as conditions under which they will establish and maintain great enterprises. As a rule, their own demand is that they shall be treated fairly and shall not be subjected to a process of petty nagging by every petty reformer or politician who seeks prestige with the gallery gods by posing as a great corporation fighter.

Take the question of taxation to illustrate the point: We know it is the declaration of all large corporations that they willingly pay their just share of the pub

lic expense, but they want the bill made out and the amount collected in the simplest and most direct manner possible, and when the bill has been paid they want that to be the end of the whole matter. Is there anything unreasonable in this? But this is not the way in which corporations are dealt with by political authorities. Every time it becomes necessary for them to have dealings with city, township, county or state authorities, the occasion is seized by some corporation fighter to stir up antagonism against them, to levy some additional public tribute or private blackmail. Every time the administration of a city, township, county or state government finds the public finances in a bad shape, no matter from what cause, or has some grand scheme of public improvement to be carried out and give employment to their retainers, they feel sure of getting the money they need if they can find a way of talking it out of corporations. That corporations should resist such treatment, and in a measure attempt to deal with the publis as the representatives of the public deal with them -that is to say, take all they can get-is as inevitable as it is natural. That the men having real power in corporations should seek retirement and relief from the strain of business management, plus the annoyances constantly forced upon them by an antagonistic community, is exactly what any thoughtful person would expect.

All this is as true of individual as of corporate en

terprise. The prosperity of every community is never secure unless founded on justice. The principles of justice cannot be changed in their requirements by the size of the investment with which they deal, any more than the rules of arithmetic can be changed when the problem is changed from tens to millions. The law that secures the right of the poorest man in legally holding the one dollar he has legally acquired will protect the wealthy man in legally holding the million dollars he may have legally acquired. Those who declaim against granting special privileges to corporations should denounce with equal vehemence all kinds of discriminations against them. The one thing is as unjust as the other, notwithstanding the fact that the burden of the injustice rests upon different shoulders. Those who plead for justice for the people should teach the people that justice is established, not by demanding justice, but by being just. When the people offer justice there will be but little difficulty in getting corporations to accept conditions that are just. Resentment will die when antagonism

ceases.

EXTORTION IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE.

The greed of corporations is a familiar topic with a certain class of reformers. Their eyes are so firmly fixed upon extortions practiced by corporations that they cannot turn them in another direction to see the extortions practiced in the name of the people. They say government ownership is the only cure for corporate greed. Will they be good enough to show property owners where they will find a remedy for government extortion when their property is mortgaged for the purpose of acquiring public service utilities and the tax levies are increased to make good deficits caused by the costs of public ownership and operation? No corporation has the power to make a taxpayer suffer the penalties the government can assess upon him. This is why we insist that the public policy of the government ownership and operation of public service utilities is primarily a question for taxpayers. To give emphasis to this view we quote from the Chicago Times-Herald for July 31, 1900, a report in a tax sale case:

RULING IN A TAX SALE CASE.

An important tax sale ruling has been rendered by Judge Gibbons in the case of Archibald Woodard, who owned twenty-three lots in Avondale, versus Jacob Glos, who four years ago bought the lots at tax sale for $600.

Woodard sought return of the property, and the

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