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Page 26
* * * * *
It would be easy to keep on in this exalted strain, but perhaps it is a
little too much in the style of a life-insurance advertisement. We may
correct any such impression, by changing our point of view. When we
consider the difficulties and the hindrances in the way of laying up these
savings, while the moral effect of the self-sacrifice hitherto involved is
enhanced, the question comes up whether this altruistic exertion can be
maintained in the future. How many of the ten millions of depositors in
the savings banks have considered that their rulers at Washington give
away every year in military pensions a sum equal to all, and more than
all, the income earned by the four billions of dollars in the banks? When
after many years, it seemed that this burden might at last begin to be
lightened, it was suddenly increased by the last Congress perhaps thirty
millions a year. Why should so many people scrimp, year in and year out,
when the equivalent of all the toil and all the self-denial is thus swept
away?
Senator Aldrich has told the country that its affairs could be carried on
for three hundred millions of dollars a year less than it now pays. He is
a very competent witness, and no one has contradicted him. If the attempt
had been made, he could perhaps have shown--he could certainly show
now--that three hundred millions was an understatement. But this sum is
nearly equal to the income earned by the investments of all the savings
banks and all the life-insurance companies of the country. If our rulers
had borrowed ten billions of dollars at three per cent. and had wasted it
all, the country would be financially about where it is now. They have not
borrowed this ten billions of dollars, but if Mr. Aldrich is right, they
are spending the interest on it. They have in effect mortgaged the wealth
of the people to the extent of all their deposits in the savings banks,
and all their investments in life-insurance companies, and are wasting the
income of these funds faster than it is earned. If anyone thinks this is
stating the case too strongly, he may add the waste of our state and
municipal rulers to that of those at Washington, and Mr. Aldrich's figure
will seem moderate enough.
* * * * *
People who are comfortably off will reply to all this that we are getting
on pretty well, and seem to be on the whole doing better from year to
year. There is a well known passage in Macaulay's History which may be
thought to give support to optimism of this kind. "No ordinary
misfortune," he said, "no ordinary misgovernment, will do so much to make
a nation wretched as the constant progress of physical knowledge, and the
constant effort of every man to better his condition will do to make a
nation prosperous."
No one will deny that the history of England justifies this statement; but
let us remember the reason that Macaulay gave for this insuperable
prosperity. "Every man has felt entire confidence that the State would
protect him in the possession of what had been earned by his diligence and
hoarded by his self-denial."
It is impossible to maintain that every man now feels this entire
confidence. The income "earned by his diligence" is henceforth to be taxed
at a progressive rate, and the demagogues are already complaining that the
rate is not high enough. The inheritance of his family, "hoarded by his
self-denial," protected by the State until within a few years, now pays
taxes which amount to the interest on a billion of dollars. We are assured
by a railroad officer that three measures of legislation have increased
the expenses of his corporation alone by a sum equal to the interest on
$32,000,000, with no appreciable benefit to the public. The number of such
laws is incalculable, and the cost of complying with them has become an
almost intolerable burden. The income of the railroads declines, while
their taxes increase, in some cases two or three fold. Lawyers and office
holders thrive and are cheerful; investors suffer and tremble.
The people of New York seem just now to be in a way to find out how the
enormous taxes which their rulers have levied on them are expended; but
New York has no monopoly of corrupt rulers, and the cost of investigating
extravagance is itself extravagant. And yet people wonder at the increased
cost of living! Unfortunately the oppressions of government do worse than
discourage business enterprise; they tend to demoralize society. There are
too many men who hesitate to marry because they do not have confidence in
the future, too many married people who do not dare to have more than one
or two children, if they dare to have any, to make it possible to maintain
that there is now no dread of more than ordinary misgovernment.
* * * * *
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