VICE-CHAIRMEN
REP. CARLTON MOORE SEN. GEO. P. MCCALLUM
HOUSTON, TEX. ANN ARBOR, MICH,

CHAIRMAN
REP. MERLE 8. SMITH
310 GEORGIA STREET
PINE BLUFF, ARK.

REP. WILLIAM MCL. FERGUSON JUSTIN C. MORGAN
NEWPORT NEWS, VA. MEMBER OF ASSEMBLY

SEN. Sioux K. GRIGSBY
SIOUX FALLS, 5, D.

REP. WRIGHT HUGUS
WHEELING, We YA.

SEN. ARTHUR H. LAWs
DENVER, COLO,

HON. EARL J. Cee
FREMONT, NES. ~

SEN. ARNOLD LEONARD
JOPLIN, MO.

STATE LEGISLATORS FOR THE XX AMENDMENT =

To de-centralize Federal Government—fo re-establish State's Rights

VICE-CHAIRMEN
SEN. GEO. B. SCARLETT SEN. DAVID VAN ALSTYN, JR.
KENNETH SQUARE, PA. ENGLEWOOD, N. J.

SEN. W. H. ABINGTON
BEEBE, ARK.

SEN. CHARLES T. ALGREN
EAST GREENWICH, R. I.

REP. STANLEY C. ARMSTRONG
CHICAGO, ILL.

REP. LU. B. BLALOCK
WADESBORO, N. C.

SEN. JOE E. BLYTHE
CHARLOTTE, N.C.

GEN. HERBERT S. BOREMAN
PARKERSBURG, W.VA.

SEN. RICHARD S. BOWERS
BOSTON, MASS,

SEN. GEO. V. BROWN
CARIBOU, ME.

SEN. JOHN W. BYRNES
GREEN BAY, WIS.

SEN. JAMES A. CARLEY _
PLAINVIEW, MINN,

SPKR. HOBART CREIGHTON
WARSAW, IND,

SEN. JAMES O. DOLBY
LAKE CHARLES, LA,

SEN. JAMES A. SIMPSON
BIRMINGHAM, ALA,

REP. HARRY E. TROUT
MANHEIM, PA,

REP. J. HOGE TYLer, I! {f
NORFOLK, VA.

REP. SYLVESTER J. WAGNER
COVINGTON, KY.

SEN. G. O. YOUNG
BUCKHANNON, W. VA-

BUFFALO, N. Y.

SEN. JOHN C. MORRISON
CHARLESTON, W. VA.
SEN. KARL G. NEUMEIER
STILLWATER, MINN,

SEN. BURTON ROACH
HILLSBORO, N. M.

SPKR. WALTER SILLERS
ROSEDALE, MISS.

 

 

AN ARGUMENT FOR THE XXIT AMENDMENT a

 

“The power to tax is the power to destroy’— to
destroy the States of the American Union.

Unless a ceiling is placed on the power of the
Federal Government to tax, it can destroy the
States by drawing into Washington so much of
the wealth created in the States and their towns,
cities and counties, that they cannot finance their
OWN activities.

Many States have constitutional limitations on
their taxing and borrowing power. Thousands of
local governments have statutory limitations of
the same character.

If it is sound to limit the taxing power of State
and local government, it is doubly sound to limit
with respect to income, gift and inheritance taxes,
that power in the hands of the Federal Govern-
ment. This, for the reason that the Federal Gov-
ernment (as court decisions seem to indicate) has
a prior claim on all wealth and income upon which
all governments, Federal, State and local, must
depend.

In 1938, Governor Lehman of New York, in a
letter to Senator Pat Harrison of the Senate Finance
Committee, wrote:

“The independent sovereignty of the States is threat-
ened by Federal taxing policies . . . If one of two
governments having equal, concurrent jurisdiction to
levy a tax, actually monopolizes the field to the ex-

clusion or the near exclusion of the other, it may
follow that that other government will be destroyed
or at least starved into impotency. The extent to which
the Federal Government has been and is ignoring the
rights of the States in the income (personal and
corporate) and estate tax fields and virtually
monopolizing those fields to the exclusion of the
States, is truly alarming.”
This danger, now so apparent, was foreseen by
a few men when the 16th Amendment was before
the State Legislatures for ratification in 1910. At
that time, Governor Charles E. Hughes of New
York and some of the country’s most distinguished
lawyers such as Joseph H. Choate, warned of the
dangers of an unlimited power to tax being given
the Federal Government. In a brief before the New
‘York Legislature it was said:

“.. . It is almost universally conceded that no such
taxing power can be safely vested in Congress, and
that the existence of the power might seriously irs-
peril the independence and autonomy of the several
States . . . It is, of course, now elementary that the
power to tax is the strongest of all governmental
powers, that it ‘acknowledges no limits but the will

_. of the legislative body imposing the tax,’ that it is

indisputably the power to destroy, and that of all
powers, it is the one most liable to abuse .. . There is,
indeed, no limit to the possible ascent in the scale of

progression, and no power to prevent abuse and op- |

pression on the part of temporary or irresponsible

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