Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/181

Rh If, however, public sentiment in any community is so adverse to the levy of moderate poll taxes that their collection is not and can not be enforced with any degree of uniformity and equality, as is reported to be the case in many States, then the advisability of their abandonment can not well be questioned, for the want of respect for all law, which always results from the maintenance upon the statute book of any law which a community will not regard or permit to be enforced, is an evil that far outweighs any possible good that can come from its continuance. Furthermore, the statement is probably warranted that in no instance in history has it been possible to enforce a permanent tax against which by common consent the public has revolted.

In considering the feasibility of its continuance it should not be overlooked that the tax upon property can be collected because the State holds a confiscatory power over the property to the extent of the tax. But the tax upon the non-property-holding polls can not be collected except through the consent of the assessed person, unless resort is had to the old law of imprisonment until payment is made—a remedy not likely to find favor.

The recent experiences of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are especially worthy of note in this connection. The Constitution of Massachusetts, adopted during the Revolution, limited the suffrage to "every male inhabitant of twenty-one years of age and upward, having a freehold estate within the Commonwealth of the annual income of three pounds, or any estate of the value of sixty pounds." This restriction was abolished in 1821, but payment of a poll tax was still required before a man could vote. In recent years, however, this form of taxation has become so unpopular in this State, mainly by reason of a general belief that politicians, without distinction of party, were in the habit of collecting and disbursing large sums for the purpose of influencing or bribing voters by payment of their poll taxes, that in 1891 an amendment to the Constitution of the State was adopted which, while retaining the previous obligation of the payment of an annual poll tax, abolished such payment as a prerequisite for voting. The result was that before the adoption of this amendment from fifty-two to fifty-nine per cent of the poll tax due in the city of Boston was collected year by year; but since then the percentage of collection has fallen below forty-four per cent. Many of the city's own employees figure among the delinquents, and it has been found necessary to place hundreds of poll bills in the hands of the city treasurer for the deduction of the amount due from their wages. Leaving out the persons who can not pay without great sacrifice, it is stated that Boston is still losing above one hundred thousand dollars yearly in revenue from failure to collect the taxes upon polls that can and should pay. And this, in a