Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 54.djvu/338

322 smaller cities of Massachusetts, where persons and property are capable of more thorough, supervision than larger numbers and areas—namely, the city of Springfield, with a population of about fifty thousand—the report of its tax officials shows that for the year 1894-'95 the number of persons and corporations assessed on property (mainly real estate) was 7,745, or one for every 6.4 of its citizens, while 10,560 other citizens were assessed for a poll tax of two dollars only. Of the total amount of taxes assessed—namely, $735,948—the above number, 10,560, paid only $21,120; and this is the experience generally throughout the United States, as it will be in every country under a free popular government, where arbitrary inquisitions and arrests of persons and seizures of property are not allowed, and where a soldier does not practically stand behind every tax assessor and collector.

The time (1871) when the personal investigations above referred to were made was when the masses of the city of New York were moved with indignation at the misuse and private appropriation by a few officials (Tweed and his associates) of the municipal revenues raised by taxation, under cover of instituting public improvements, and which finally led to their prosecution, imprisonment, or self-imposed exile; and the questions which naturally suggested themselves were: If only some forty thousand of the million in New York city paid the taxes, what interest had the other nine hundred and sixty thousand who never saw the face of a tax assessor or collector in opposing corruption? What, in an honest administration of the city government and in a reduction of taxes? Must it not be for the interest of the many that the expenditures of the State shall always be as large as possible? Must they not be benefited by exorbitant taxes on the owners of property, and a distribution of the money collected, even if stolen by corruptionists, but spent by them lavishly on enterprises that will furnish new opportunities for employment or amusement for the masses? Clearly, so far as any personal experience growing out of any direct assessment and levy was concerned, ninety-six per cent of the population of the city had no more cause of personal grievance by reason of the unlawful taking of money from the city treasury than they would have had at the taking of an equivalent amount from the municipal treasuries of London, Paris, or any other city.

The answer to these questions is to be found in the fact, as John Adams once remarked, that "if the Creator had given man a reason that is fallible, he has also impressed upon him an instinct that is sure." And this instinct teaches the masses everywhere, though they have never read a book on political economy, or heard any one discourse learnedly on the principles of taxation, that if taxes are