The Greater Republic Part 80
No country can approach the advancements we have made in invention, in discovery, in science, in art, in education and in all the civilizing agencies of mankind. Volumes would be required to name our achievements in these lines. Our material property has been or is equally wonderful.
When the Civil War closed, our public debt was nearly $3,000,000,000. On December 1, 1898, it was $1,036,000,000. Most of the leading nations have great debts, but the United States is the only one which is steadily decreasing its debt and at the same time enormously increasing its resources. The debt of Great Britain is now about $87 per capita, that of France $115, of Holland $100, of Italy $75, and of the United States less than $15, with the security increasing all the time.
Let the thoughtful reader note these striking facts. European nations generally, and some South American nations also, have been compelled to resort to various methods of taxation to supply the sums needed for ordinary governmental expenses, to meet the interest on the existing debt, to provide resources for new expenditures, buildings, armament, subsidies, and various public works. England has an income tax and many stamp taxes, a house tax, and collects some 20 per cent. of its revenue from direct taxation. France has a tobacco monopoly, registration taxes, stamp taxes, tax on windows, and innumerable local taxes, one being the octroi, or tax on goods entering cities. In addition to an income tax, and many stamp taxes, Austria derives a good deal of its public revenue from lotteries. Italy goes still further with her tobacco monopoly, house tax, income tax, salt tax, octroi duties, stamp taxes, and heavy legacy and registration taxes. In the United States, however, the public revenues have been provided for and all public expenses met, and the national debt reduced beside, without recourse to any direct taxation.
We have no government monopolies, and the Treasury maintains a healthful condition from the receipts of customs and internal revenue payments.
Thus with the spirit of fraternity between all sections of the Union stronger than ever before, with the spirit of patriotism more deeply imbedded and all-pervading, with our moral, educational, and material prosperity and progress greater than any time in our past history, and never equaled by any nation, since the annals of mankind began--we face the future, bravely resolved to meet all requirements, responsibilities, and duties as become men whose motto is
IN G.o.d IS OUR TRUST.
_The End._