Fletcher's State Rights Farming. (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 9, Ed. 1 Monday, April 1, 1935 Page: 1 of 16
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FAPMING MUST PAY OP THE NATION WILL PE PISH - Ceo. D. Terre//.
Entered as second class matter June 24, 1922, at the Postoffice at Hondo, On. Year. 50c; Thro. Year., $1.00
Texas, under the Act of March S, 1H79. sing,. copi„, 8c.
HONDO, TEXAS, APRIL 1, 1935.
No. 9.
WHO WANTS SALES TAXES?
By Dr. P. A. Spain.
Staff Contributor.
Someone asked me to write an ar- -
tide on the sales tax. Of course, I *
am against it. Why in the world does
anybody with a human heart want
to run more taxes on to the people?
Taxes are burdens which should not
be laid upon the average citizen.
If our Federal Government would
issue its own money in payment for
all its outlays, then we would need no
Federal taxes, except to take back
the excess accumulations of certain
individuals and corporations. It our
State would take for its own use its
underground riches to pay its own
expenses, then we would need no
State or County taxes.
If cities owned their public utili-
ties, then the income from these util-
ities iwould take the place of all City
taxes. But until we get these three
great reforms we must make the best
of a bad system, and continue for a
while to flounder around in a maze
of multiplied taxes. Silly! Silly!
What fools we are? Our lawmakers
have already taxed our people out of
their homes. What a tragedy! No
tax should be levied which cripples
or hampers the common home.
Earth’s greatest blessings can nev-
er be realized except in tne security
of private homes. Life in its full
fruition cannot be attained except
untier the vine and fig tree of a quiet
home. The greatest comforts to a
human being are a permanent home.
The greatest asset to any Govern-
ment is its home-owning citizens. A
roving, dissatisfied people, are a li-
ability and not an asset of Govern-
ments.
The most imperative duty of Gov-
ernment is the protection and foster-
ing of its homes. Have we protect-
ed our homes and encouraged home
ownership? No, we have absolutely
taxed them away from many citizens.
All legislation should be directed to
favor home ownership for every fam-
ily. We may need autos, but we first
need homes. We may need churches
and schools, but we need homes
more. Children may need playthings,
dogs, cats, dolls, skates and pictures,
but they first need comfortable
homes. Young men and women may
need sweethearts, wives or husbands,
but they first need homes. Mothers
love their babies, but babies without
homes are pitiable misfits in life’s
•scheme.
Men and women may think they
need whiskey and tobacco, but they
really do need homes; much w'orse.
The Government itself may figure it
needs taxes and revenues, but infin-
itely more does it need a home-own-
ing and home-loving citizenship. At
present three fourths of our people
are shifting, drifting, moving, roving,
OFF-HAND OBSERVATIONS
By K. R. Clnridce.
Staff Contributor.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, PROSPERITY PRESIDENT, GREAT
AMERICAN, WROTE:
I
NORTHAMPTON, Mass., April 7, 1931.—It will do no harm to have
a reminder that when congress passes laws requiring the expenditure of
money, the people will have to pay it. W hen a deficit exists it must be
met. Temporary borrowing by the treasury may take care of it for the
present, but finally the taxpayers will come to a day of reckoning.
Raising tax iates does not now seem popular. Imposing a new levy
on small incomes is anathema to those who vote large appropriations.
Some legislators even boast of supporting all appropriation bills and
opposing ail tax bills. But people (with small incomes will pay indirectly
in all they buy or use, even if they pay no direct tax. They are the ones
who suffer most from government extravagance.
The present high rate of taxes, especially state and local assessments,
is one of the main reasons small concerns are closing up and their busi-
ness is going to cham stores and other large corporations. The over-
head ol taxes is so large that a small business is at a serious disadvan-
tage.
#
From present appearances it will be a long time before the country
will get the encouragement of national tax reduction.
I
CALVIN COOLIDGE.
*
*
*
dissatisfied. What a deplorabe state.
Consumers, three fourths of whom
belong in the ranks of poor men, pay
the taxes of the big business man. All
taxes, no matter what you call them,
are always paid by the consumers
and three fourths of them are just
common poor laboring producers. All
taxes in the final reckoning are sales
taxes, and are paid at the point of
coiuact between sellers and buyers;
and everything bought and sold is
taxed under some, or all, of the mul-
tiplied tax heads.
When we buy a loaf of bread, we
pay 17 kinds of taxes. If we buy
shoes we pay 23 taxes. If we buy
autos we pay 42 taxes. If we ride
in electric vehicles we pay 58 taxes,
and so on for every article bought in
the market.
We already have a Federal sales
tax along with dozens of others, and
now some of our legislators want to
slap on top of these, a State sale tax.
This will still further lessen our
chances for ever awning a home.
Give us Jess taxes and more home-
owners. Construct good Government
foundations with happy homes, and
do less undermining of those founda-
tions by tax digging. Why should
any man in our Legislature want to
add more taxes? No wonder the
houses and land are slipping from
the people.
Let us be sensible and stop it. Add
no more taxes, but repeal, repeal, re-
peal. Help families to get back to
homes of their own and do it by ex-
empting all common citizens from all
taxes. It is the only way to do it.
Sales taxes above all else, are taxes
paid mainly by propertyless men. We
started in the right direction when
we exempted small homesteads from
State taxes. We just need to go on
and apply the exemptions to other
forms of taxes.
Some say they want to repeal Ad
Valorem taxes, and enact the sales
tax to take their place. What good
will that do, to repeal one tax and put
on another bigger? The common
workers pay them all anyway. Be-
sides, it is a foolish, dishonest deal to
take taxes off from those who own
property and put them on people who
have no property; and that is what
you do when you shift from Ad Va-
lorem taxes to sales taxes.
The big landholders—the man of
big pi operty and big incomes all want
the shift made. Will you, as a com-
mon voter and friend of mankind,
stand for it? The scores of Federal,
State, County and City taxes are col-
lected by our several branches of
Government, and then the Govern-
ment a'lows a lot of private parties
to drain from the people a greater
fund in the shap^ of interest taxes,
insurance taxes, rents and specula-
tive profits. No wonder the people’s
homes are gone from them.
This attempt to substitue sales
taxes for Ad Valorem taxes is a deep,
dark plot whereby mortgage holders
may foreclose on the property of this
country; and then be free from tax-
ation on their “rake-in”. Beware of
their sophistry. Hold on to gradu-
ated property taxes and graduated
income taxes. They are our best de-
fense against complete Joss of our
just liberties.
“Capitalism” in its meaning, is 60
per cent of the wealth of the nation,
owned by one per cent of the people.
In its results are riotous living by the
few, and, well, look about you and
tee for yorusilf, what it has brought
upon the mass of humanity. And yet
it is defended by big business and its
paid panderers, on the ground that it
encourages initiative, and for its be-
nevolent handouts to the 99 per cent
it has robbed.
And here the socialists come back
with the claim that the government
could better dispense the dole of
charity; and that there would be less
occasion for the latter. As to the
hand-out, what else is the govern-
ment doing right now? As to initi-
ative, the main trend of it is to grab
everything in sight regardless, and
hold on to it like a lean tick to a nig-
ger’s shin. And as to the benevo-
lence of big business, the multimil-
lionaires noted for letting a little of
their ill-gotten gains slip through
their fingers, they may be counted
oii the fingers of one hand.
And, I wonder if the government
could make a worse mess than the
way they go about it. For instance,
the younger Rockefeller spent five
million dollars rebuilding and reha-
bilitating the palace and grounds of
the Tuileries near Paris, the habitat
of French royalty; and which, along
with its disgraceful history, should
have been consigned to oblivion cen-
turies ago, but for its warning to fu-
ture civilization.
This benevolent bump on the face
of nature, in other words, spent five
million dollars in foreign material,
and in the employment of foreign la-
bor, while thousands of homeless,
hungry people in his awn home city
were left destitute. And, as the
Rockefellers are the best of benevo-
lent big business, is not much to say
for the rest of the one per cent. The
one per cent and their dupes are not
only starving agriculture; they ar«
starving industry, and piling up a lot
of future trouble for themselves.
This is the element that heads the
hue and cry against a reasonable in-
flation of cash money, the life blooc’
cf the nation; afraid the people may
get their hands on a few dollars that
they would not have to borrow and
pay cash on. But credit is as unavail-
able as cash, for the reason that the
credit men have got the people so
blank pore that old cent-per-cent,
is afraid to loan them money. I may-
have something to say to you about
inflation and deflation in a future
issue of Farming.
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Davis, Fletcher. Fletcher's State Rights Farming. (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 9, Ed. 1 Monday, April 1, 1935, newspaper, April 1, 1935; Hondo, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth555382/m1/1/: accessed June 13, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hondo Public Library.