Page:Is Capital Income, Earle, 1921.djvu/31

Rh productive capital has been cut in half, or nearly destroyed. If that can be done, under the long established rule of judicial interpretation, so far as taxing is concerned, and the specious arguments of "Necessity" are listened to, nothing further seems necessary so far as revenue is concerned; for, by mere interpretation, a single taxing act, to be subsequently construed by the rule that it is to be interpreted, not by what it clearly says, but by what the executive officers of the Government imagine they need, will fill all requirements—and Liberty end. Are Americans hereafter, instead of being ruled by the doctrines prevailing even in Great Britain, to face the fact that henceforth, where the Legislatures, with their full powers are not pleased to be explicit and clear, the rule is to be, not that vagueness is not to continue to be "so much the worse for the Crown," but so much the worse for the people and their constitutionally-protected freedom? Are we no longer to be taxed by the clear mandate of our proper representatives, but by a substitute of clearly distinguished and conflicting words, inserted by the executive branch of our Government? That must be impossible, if we are to remain free, and, as keeping us so is the great privilege of the Supreme Court we should have no further cause for anxiety concerning the destruction of constitutional guarantees through such abuses of the power of taxation.

There could be found no better illustration of the dangers and futility of the made or inferred argument of that "creed of slaves-necessity," than the very matter under discussion. The taxing power, disregarding the decisions of the Supreme Courts, not only of the United States, but of all the States, burdens the people by unwarranted taxes, on the theory that "Income," at