Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

STATEMENT OF MR. BENJAMIN C. MARSH, SECRETARY FARMERS' NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON WAR FINANCE, 35 BLISS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C.

.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Marsh, state your name and business, or occupation.

Mr. MARSH. Benjamin C. Marsh, secretary of the Farmers' National Committee on War Finance, a committee of which Gov. Arthur Capper, of Kansas, is chairman and upon which we have representatives of the National Grange, the American National Livestock Growers, the Dairymen's Union, Buttermakers' Association, the Society of Equity, and the Farmers' Union, and the Gleaners. Mr. MOORE. What is you home place?

Mr. MARSH. I am here in Washington, at the headquarters here. Mr. Chairman, may I say that I think appreciation ought to be expressed to this committee of the sacrifice you are making in staying here and getting right at this job. The Congressmen are often criticized, and I believe it is only due to say to you that I think it is very much appreciated. Personally may I say. Mr. Chairman, that I will not be satisfied with this revenue bill which you gentlemen are preparing if you do not make me pay a much higher income tax next year. Now, I do not know how many of the folks that will appear before you will say that, but I say it in all sincerity. I have been talking to thousands of the boys down at Camp Meade and I am going to do it again, because they have asked me to come down there. I have been talking straight economies to them and why we are in this war, and I can not look those fellows in the face if I pay the income tax I did last year, my wife and I both working, with no exemption, or about $31.50, or on about $1,500 net. Now, gentlemen, please make me pay a decently heavy income tax, and for Heaven's sake make it a straight income tax and not a camouflage tax on consumption.

That is the most unpatriotic tax. I believe, that can be conceived, because you do not know who is going to pay it.

I am to speak chiefly this morning on an excess-profits tax and a tax upon incomes, and urge this: That the one principle upon which this war must be financed, and we believe the only adequate principle, is the equality of financial sacrifice. Yesterday I spoke in New York at a meeting at which there were several multimillionaires. I suggested this principle and they did not know whether to faint or call the police. But I think it is absolutely unanswerable. This is not a regular war. We all have got to insist, as far as possible, upon the principle of equality of financial sacrifice.

You may recall that the Grange adopted a resolution last year at St. Louis urging that the Government should take over all incomes in excess of $100,000. It would seem that $50.000 would be enough for a patriot, and a certain number are not entitled to more than half that. I do not see how a patriot could ask for more than $50,000 to live on. I think you gentlemen will agree, having read the statements which many of you have made, and which I have seen in the press, with what I am going to suggest to-day, because I think I know what is in your minds, and what I am going to say I can substantiate with some statistics. May I ask the privilege of submitting later a

much fuller table of statistics and suggestions and just outline the matter this morning?

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection you may do so.

Mr. MARSH. I am here in Washington, in the Bliss Building, and if I can be of any service in getting information for you I will be glad to get it.

It has been suggested that we should put taxes upon consumption. When you come right down to it taxes on consumption are indirect income taxes. A man can not pay them if he does not have them. I am going to quote a rather conservative authority to you this morning, the Bankers Trust Co., of New York, among others, and the Commerce and Finance Journal, published by Mr. Theodore H. Price, at least up until this week, when he came here to be the actuary for the Railroad Administration. The Bankers Trust Co. estimates that in 1916 the total national income was $50,000,000,000. Prof. Anderson, of Harvard University, estimates the national income for 1917 at $68,600,000,000. That was criticized and I received a letter from him this morning in which he says that certainly for 1917 it will be $60,000,000,000 or will be between $60,000,000,000 and $63,000,000,000. He is coming down here to do some work and he promises to prepare some figures which I will be glad to submit.

It seems to me that in this revenue bill we have two things which we want to do. We want to raise revenue without producing inflation and in such a way as to conserve the material resources of this country at the same time. Now, I urged yesterday what has been called conscription of wealth, but I think the fairer term is the equality of financial sacrifice. I urged that at this meeting in New York, where they were considering how to get war economy. It seems to me pretty obvious that if you take the income which a man might spend upon luxuries, and I was a little astounded that there was a $2 luncheon at a meeting on war economy, but I did not take a ticket: but if you are going to have war economy you have got to see to it that people do not blow the money in foolishly. I do not know any better way to prevent that than the way the Government has of putting the property and incomes of this country on the same basis as it is putting the men of the country, or, perhaps, it would be fairer to say, on the same basis that the men of the country ask to be placed in this war.

The distribution of income is simply astounding. I was unable to send a second copy of this statement to you, but out of 27.304.000 families 7.288.000 had an income of under $850. Many of these were individuals, of course.

Mr. STERLING. What are you reading from?

Mr. MARSH. From the Bankers Trust Co. pamphlet, which I have here. Roughly speaking, out of twenty-seven and a quarter million families, nineteen and a quarter million families had, in 1916, an income of under $1.950. Now, the inflation is going on very rapidly and

Mr. MOORE (interposing). I should like to know what authority there is for the figures you are presenting, because they are astounding. I would like to know what you have behind the Bankers Trust Co., or this professor, whose statement is that the incomes last year were anywhere from $50,000,000,000 to $68,000,000,000.

Mr. MARSH. In its issue of May 22 that question was taken up by Mr. Price in the Commerce and Finance Journal.

Mr. MOORE. He is an individual. Mr. Price is just the same as any other one of us; the professor you quote is the same as any other one of us, and the actuary of the Bankers Trust Co., who undoubtedly prepared those figures, is no more than any of the rest of us. Where do those figures come from, and from what source do you get your authority for them?

Mr. MARSH. I got the incomes of over $3,000 from the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. I have had to make an estimate, because they do not-I have not been able to get the total of the receipts from the people in the different classes, but you gentlemen can get those things, of course, at any time. I certainly trust that you will ask that the incomes being made, at least those over $25,000, be made public, and that ought to be made a part of this bill. Mr. MOORE. If you try to make the committee start out with the proposition that the incomes were $60,000,000,000 last year, or any other amount, you can deduce almost anything, but you may be moving entirely away from the figures which the committee should consider.

Mr. MARSH. I am perfectly willing to withdraw all of my figures if you will ask the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to give you all the information he has. For instance, from their report for the year 1916, it appears that the aggregate corporate return was $8,697,000,000.

Mr. MOORE. That is official, and there is such a wide difference between that and the amount you have gotten from these professors and others that I am wondering where we are going to get the exact facts.

Mr. MARSH. I have not seen anyone who denies that it was less than $50,000,000,000.

Mr. MOORE. But, you see, that is vague. I want to be frank with you. We have got to pass a law that affects everybody.

Mr. MARSH. I will say this: If you gentlemen will ask for the information I have suggested I will be perfectly satisfied with the figures you find.

Mr. MOORE. I do not expect to interrupt you again except to ask you to authenticate the figures you have given in some way or other. Mr. MARSH. As I explained in opening, I would like to place fuller figures in the record, and I will be glad to give you a substantiation of them. I have seen statements from a half dozen Senators, as well as many Congressmen, that you have all of these figures available. Senator Borah says you have them and the President says you have them, and I will take his word.

Mr. MOORE. You just quoted from some publication.

Mr. MARSH. Yes: from the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

Mr. MOORE. But your say you are predicating your plan upon supposititious incomes running up to as high as $60.000,000,000, and you say the gentleman who gave you those figures is likely to be in Washington to-morrow. What help can he give us?

Mr. MARSH. I will go into more detail in just a minute or so. I will read something to you.

Mr. TREADWAY. Before you proceed let me ask you this question: You are not trying to substantiate this $50,000,000,000 or $60,000,000,000 income feature in any way through the official report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, which shows $8,000,000,000?

Mr. MARSH. No, sir; that $8,000,000,000 represented the corporate income returns and has nothing to do with the incomes from individuals.

Mr. LONGWORTH. How much of our total war expenditures do you want to raise by taxation?

Mr. MARSH. I do not want to put it upon a percentage basis. I think it is illogical to put it upon a percentage basis unless it is necessary, no more than I think it would have been logical at the beginning of the war to say that 1,000,000 men would be our maximum Army; no matter what happens, we will not send one more man over the million men to France to make the world safe for democracy. It would be just as illogical to do that as to say what the percentage of taxation shall be. This is not an ordinary war, it seems to me, and I think we ought to establish a principle of equality of financial sacrifice; and if necessary, raise the expenditures by taxation up to 95 per cent, or 50 per cent, or 60 per cent, as the necessity might arise. It seems to me that the whole conduct of the war should be upon that principle.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You say we should raise 90 per cent of the expenditures by taxation?

Mr. MARSH. I say if it were possible and necessary.

Mr. LONGWORTH. But you would have it lower than 90 per cent. if possible, and as low as 80 per cent?

Mr. MARSH. I certainly would pay as we go along, because I do not like the idea of piling up big debts.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You want to raise all of these expenditures by taxation; is that the idea?

Mr. MARSH. I would like to, sir, but I certainly can not take the position that this war should be an excuse for piling up enormous debts, and my position is that I would like to have the war paid for. as nearly as possible, as we go along. I am sure there is ro man in this country who thinks that this war is for the purpose of piling up large debts. I could not put the case with any more force or with more cogency than did the President in his address to you a week ago last Monday.

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue does not give any figures as to the incomes of the 10 people whom he knows to have incomes of over $5,000,000. Young Mr. Rockefeller agreed that his father's property was worth well over $1,000,000,000, and I think it is safe to put his income at around $70,000,000. I am informed that he subscribed that much to the liberty loan, the first one, I think it was, or perhaps the second. I estimate about $140,000,000, which is pretty conservative. There are several men whom I know have incomesthat is, so far as people pretty high in Wall Street are informed— of from $10,000,000 to $12,000,000, so that $140,000,000 is a pretty low average for the aggregate income of these 10. There are nine men who have an income from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000, making an aggregate of $40,500,000. I do not believe I ought to burden you with all of these details. I have worked them out and it will take a good deal

of time for me read them to you, and unless you want me to do so, I will put them in the record.

Mr. MOORE. That schedule you are going to put in the record, are you not?

Mr. MARSH. I am going to have it copied and put in the record.
Mr. MOORE. Let us get down to your point. You think that
$50,000 is a sufficient income for any man to get in war times?
Mr. MARSH. It does seem so to me.

Mr. MOORE. What would you do with the rest of his income?
Mr. MARSH. I would put it into the Public Treasury.

Mr. MOORE. Would you confiscate it or just deliberately legislate it out of his hands, or what would you do? He might have industries in which he was engaged and if you took all of the balance from him it might do a great deal of harm to people who were dependent on him for employment. I would like to get at your plan.

Mr. MARSH. Of course, this is not the taxable income, but he is to have $50,000 after he has paid what he owes and paid his taxes. Of course, a property owner has that deducted, while a tenant does not have those things deducted at all, and, frankly, I think that is all of the income that should be allowed a man, although you might put it up to $100,000. As you know, the Government is now exercising supervision over all sorts of industry through the War Finance Corporation, and I think that this taking of these excess incomes will enable the Government, in large measure, to exercise control over investments in unwise and nonessential industries during the war.

Mr. MOORE. We have had all that before the committee, because the bill providing for the War Finance Corporation came out of this committee. I think Mr. Amos Pinchot has some such theory as this. He wanted the income to be $100,000, while you have reduced the limit to $50,000. What I want to know is what we will do with the rest of a man's income? Shall we take it away from him and confine him to $50,000? Shall we deprive him of going on with his industry and prevent him from engaging in any enterprise, just holding him down to that $50,000? What will we do with the rest of it? Suppose he were dependent upon that income for the maintenance of a large establishment which employed thousands of people?

Mr. MARSH. If it is an essential war industry and a going concern, under the rulings of the War Finance Corporation, that will be advanced to him, the capital which he needs.

Mr. MOORE. As a matter of fact, is not your plan that of practically confiscating and taking for the Government everything a man earns over $50,000?

Mr. MARSH. My plan is to put the man of wealth on the same plane as the man who relies upon his earnings. Now, you do not relieve the man with an income of $2,000, do you?

Mr. MOORE. No; he is taxed, and so is the man who earns $50,000. But you are getting away from the question which I am putting to you, which is a plain one: What shall we do with everything a man earns over $50,000, having due regard to the fact that what he does earn over $50,000 is employed in an industry which helps in keeping the war going?

Mr. MARSH. I would simply say that the income of such an individual should be utilized directly under Government supervision.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »