pense of $15.00 a year, and to receive ten copies of the Annual Bulletin, or, if it choses to do so, it may make an arrangement by which every member of a State Bar Association who is not a member of the American Bar Association shall receive a copy by paying an additional sum of $5.00 for every one hundred members. The President: The report will be received. (See the Report in the Appendix, page 561.) The Secretary: I have a report to make on behalf of the Executive Committee. There was referred to the Executive Committee a resolution offered by Mr. Richberg, of Illinois, upon which the committee now desires to report favorably: Amending Article XI of the Constitution, entitled "Construction" by adding after the words "District of Columbia" the words "and the insular possessions of the United States." Charles Henry Butler, of New York: I would like to ask, in view of something that has been stated tonight, whether that should not also include the "Canal Zone." I notice in the report of the Committee on Uniform State Laws that the Canal Zone has not yet sent commissioners. When we get something else we can amend again, but we had better amend now so as to cover everything that we have. Walter A. Knight, of Ohio: Why couldn't we simply say "insular and other possessions"? Charles Henry Butler, of New York: I have no objection to the form of the amendment, so long as it takes in everything that ought to be represented. The Secretary: The amendment, then, will read: To add at the end or Article XI of the Constitution the words "and the insular and other possessions of the United States." The amendment was adopted. The Secretary: The Executive Committee also, of its own initiative, offers the following amendment: Insert in Article III, of the Constitution, after the first clause which provides for the various officers, the following: There shall be an Assistant Secretary, who shall be elected by the Executive Committee, and shall hold office at their pleasure. The President: It has been found absolutely necessary to provide for an Assistant Secretary, as the work of the Association has passed very far beyond the ability of one man to give it such attention as it requires, and this is simply intended to increase the working efficiency of the organization. The amendment was adopted. The Association then adjourned until Thursday, August 26, 1909, at 10 A. M. THIRD DAY. Thursday, August 26, 1909, 10 A. M. The President called the meeting to order. The Secretary: The Executive Committee desires to announce that the ladies accompanying members of the Association are invited to the banquet tomorrow evening. The tickets for the ladies will be $3.00 each. The President: Is the Committee on Taxation ready to report? Theodore Sutro, of New York: Mr. President and gentlemen: I shall read the report of this committee, because if I attempt to state the substance of the report it will take longer than it will to read it. The report of the Committee on Taxation was then read. (See the Report in the Appendix, page 563.) James O. Crosby, of Iowa: I would inquire whether the committee proposes to make the appropriation of a thousand dollars spoken of? Theodore Sutro: We propose to use it gradually for the purpose of getting together these statistics and comparing the laws of the various states, and then offering a model tax law to be recommended to the various states for adoption. I do not know that the members of the Association generally are aware of the rule adopted by the Executive Committee recently that "no appropriations will be made hereafter for any expenses incurred save in necessary consideration of subjects referred to committees by vote of the Association." We, therefore, ask, in view of this resolution, that we be authorized to proceed with the work outlined, and that an appropriation of $1000 be made for the committee's use, to be drawn in two annual instalments of $500 each. This is the unanimous report of the committee, and I move its adoption. Alfred Hayes, Jr., of New York. I desire to oppose the motion that has been made and to make clear what I think it involves. The proposal is to cooperate with another association, and we must necessarily cooperate upon the terms which that other association lays down. Now, what are those terms? That two propositions be considered as fundamental: First, that an inheritance tax shall be designed to afford revenue and not to level fortunes. With that purely political question, which I do not think this Association ought to enter upon, I am not all in accord. It seems to me that if fortunes are to be leveled at all-large accumulations of wealth-practically the only available means is an inheritance tax. I do not think this Association ought to be committed in this way to that proposition by formal vote, as is stated in this report. Second, the proposition for co-operation involves the statement that this law shall be urged with a view to getting this important field pre-empted by the states. With that also I am not in accord. Whether you are a centralizationist or a believer in state rights, if you adopt the first principle—that an inheritance tax is to be used at all to level fortunes-then you are confronted with the same situation that exists in the case of an income tax, that the states cannot use such a tax for that purpose, for the reason that a resident of New York can very readily go to Connecticut or to New Jersey or to any adjoining state, and the purpose of the leveling process will be absolutely defeated. The difficulties which this report says have confronted the states in the enactment of an inheritance tax as to double taxation and similar questions, would be entirely obviated by the adoption of a federal tax. But I do not stand here to argue for a federal tax as proposed in the late Payne Bill in the House. My purpose is to say that I oppose committing this Association to a political question which is open now for a political discussion, and to which this Association ought not to commit the minority of its members. James O. Crosby: This report seems to take it for granted that the principle of an inheritance tax is already approved by the Association, and that it has become a fixed principle. I am opposed to the idea of an inheritance tax in any form. It is right that the property of the country should be taxed to pay the economical expenditures of government, and there is a tendency nowadays to invent new means of taxation; but it is not necessary to secure the inalienable rights of mankind for which governments are established, to secure to them the rights of liberty and life and the pursuit of happiness-that new methods of taxation must be continually invented. If I understand the origin of this inheritance tax it came from Augustus Caesar, who aspired to be the Emperor of Rome. He was one of a triumvirate. He got rid of Mark Antony by turning him over to the tender mercies of Cleopatra, and he made good disposition of the other triumvir. Then he wished an army to support an empire, and, in order to provide for the army, he proposed to the Senate an inheritance tax. The Senate was reluctant to pass it, and he gently intimated that unless they did pass it, he would be under the necessity of insisting upon a tax on real estate, and, as many of the Senators were large holders of realty, they acceded to his wishes and instituted this method of taxation-the inheritance tax. I do not understand that this inheritance tax was ever adopted again by any government until the rebellious colonies of America were needed to be subdued by the mother country, and the mother country adopted this inheritance tax to raise the funds necessary to subdue our American colonies. Real estate, and other property of the country, is sufficient, with a reasonable method of taxation, to supply all the needs of government, to give all the revenue that is necessary for its economical administration. But, on the other hand, there is progress. The old simple form of government that we read in the Declaration of Independence seems to be progressing in a different way. The theory was that its officers were the servants of the people, but nowadays we are learning little by little that the officers of the government are our masters, and that "we must bend our knees if they do but carelessly nod on us." I have never heard one good argument yet for an inheritance tax -only that it is a tax very easily collected; that, in fact, they can arrange the law of inheritance taxes so that no dead man can escape. Are we willing to surrender our rights to dispose by will of the little property that we have accumulated during our lives? This law of itself circumscribes that right. I am entirely opposed to the idea of an inheritance tax. Let the living support the government, and not the dead. Edward A. Harriman, of Connecticut: I desire to oppose the report of the committee on account of the welfare of the Association. It is obvious that the members of the Association do not agree on principles of taxation. There is no reason why they should agree. The question is purely a political and economical one. Such questions constantly arise in this Association, and if we are to devote ourselves to them, |