A Saturnalia of Bunk. H. L. Mencken
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loud rattle. The Sheriff, concealed in his booth behind the scaffold, has pulled the lever. Down shoots the condemned man, a shapeless, black bag—to stop with a jerk that shakes the whole scaffold. The sound of that jerk I shall not attempt to describe: it is much like a single low C, pizzicato, by 100 bass fiddles. The spectators, white and clammy, blow out their breaths; sometimes one or two of them faint. Down below, under the trap, a doctor mounts a chair and begins work with his stethoscope.
But this is not always easy. The condemned man may kick. Yes; he may kick with both feet, and swing round like a top, and draw up his knees, and heave his shoulders, and struggle with his straps. A pretty sight! And his nose may bleed and he may otherwise—a sight to see! A warning to evildoers! The majesty of the law! Society at a holy duty! Something to remember!
But soon he stops kicking and then they let him down until his toes barely touch the ground. The doctors cluster around him and listen at his chest. By and by one of them sings out “No heart beat!” and the time is taken down. “How long?” asks some one. “Twelve minutes,” says one of the doctors. “Not so bad,” agree the deputy sheriffs. And then a couple of darkies bring up a coffin and the late Mr. Johnson is lowered into it. The rope is slipped from his neck, and the spectators begin to cut it up. Souvenirs! The gown is carefully taken off him, and wrapped up. Some other fellow will need it next week.
Alas, that the suffragettes were not present yesterday. It was a first-rate union hanging, swift, businesslike and instructive. It was full of interest to the connoisseur. [4 January 1913]
ON NOT PAYING TAXES
From one wriggling upon the sharp spears of doubt and misgiving:
Is it ever decent for a good citizen to dodge the payment of taxes?
Yes; ever. That is to say, always. And it is not only decent, but also highly sagacious and moral. Theoretically, of course, every citizen is bound to pay his due share of the expenses of the State, and that due share is justly calculated by determining the value of his property. But if we proceed from the theory to the facts, we find that the taxes levied upon an individual are sometimes vastly in excess of his due share of the expenses of the State, and that, in consequence, he is brutally robbed if he pays without effort at evasion.
Consider, for example, the case of any taxpayer in Baltimore. If the taxes of the State of Maryland were evenly distributed, he would pay his proportionate share of 58 per cent. of the whole sum raised—that being the fair share of Baltimore city. But as a matter of fact, Baltimore city, by the arbitrary and indefensible fiat of the peasants at Annapolis, is forced to pay 78 per cent. of the State taxes, or nearly 35 per cent. too much, and in consequence each individual taxpayer in Baltimore is robbed of 35 cents every time he pays $1 in State taxes.
What is he to do about it? Submit like a fool, or make resistance? Make resistance, of course. But how? By deducting 35 cents in the dollar from his tax bill? Alas, that would be useless. The sheriff would seize his property and sell it for the unpaid balance. The device of concealing his property remains—not all of it, but 35 per cent. of it. And that is a device practiced by hundreds of Baltimoreans, and with justice, decency and honor. It is the duty of every honest man, to his creditors, his heirs and himself, to conserve his resources. If he wantonly wastes money in paying unjust taxes, his conduct is just as much to be reprehended as if he lavished money upon chorus girls or games of chance.
And beside the obvious overcharge as in this case, there is also, as a rule, a more subtle overcharge. It is represented by the difference between the actual running expenses of the Government and the sum extorted from the taxpayers. For example, the budget of Baltimore for 1912 provides for an expenditure of $23,580,038.95, and of this great sum more than $15,000,000 will have to be raised by direct taxes. But a considerable portion of the money thus raised, it is plain, will be wasted. The lighting department, to begin with, will spend thousands of dollars in an effort to make all Baltimore as hideous as the front of a moving-picture parlor—an indecency opposed instinctively by every truly civilized man. Again, the City Council will gobble $65,000—money for which the taxpayer will get not a cent of return. Yet again, hundreds of thousands of dollars will go into the hands of the work-shirking ward heelers employed in the various departments and on various public works. Yet again, other thousands will be wasted upon political contracts and upon silly schemes for augmenting the glory of this or that politician.
Is it fair to ask the self-respecting property owner to pay for all this debauchery? Of course it isn’t. He is responsible for his just share of the legitimate expenses of the city government, but he is certainly not bound to pay more. When, in violation of his common rights, he is forced to make that extra payment—when, in brief, he is robbed by legal process for the benefit of loafers and parasites—then he is certainly justified in opposing ingenuity to extortion and in thus saving his money. In other words, it is perfectly moral for him, being unable to procure a fair reduction of the tax rate, to procure, by whatever means may be at hand, a reduction of his assessment.
Thus the ethics of it. In practice, the honorable taxpayer is confronted by the difficulty of determining just how much of the money annually raised by taxation is actually needed for the conduct of the government, and how much is merely coveted by political bravos and thimble-riggers.5 In the case of Maryland State taxes, as we have seen, he is justified in chalking off 35 per cent at the start. But how much of the remainder is really needed? Here opinions must differ widely. One man whom I consulted this morning ventured the view that half is well spent and half is wasted. Another put the well-spent portion at 60 per cent. A third put it at 40 per cent. A fourth insisted that it could not be greater than 30 per cent.
In the case of city taxes the same difficulty arises. There are persons who believe that of every dollar entering the City Hall, 75 cents is wasted, while others hold that a full half of it is well spent. My own opinion, based upon 40 years of close study, is that the proportion of avoidable waste is commonly over-estimated. In some of the city departments, I believe, not 20 per cent. of the money spent is actually thrown away, and in none is the proportion greater than 60 per cent. Perhaps 33-1/3 per cent. would be a fair average. That is to say, it is fair to assume that, of every dollar collected in taxes, 66-2/3 cents is spent with reasonable honesty and intelligence.
Thus the taxpayer is justified in “swearing off” 33-1/3 per cent. of his assessment, or, to be more accurate, in concealing 33-1/3 per cent. of his property. So much for city taxes. When it comes to State taxes he is justified in chalking off 35 per cent. at the start, and 33-1/3 per cent. afterward—or 68-2/3 per cent. in all. But inasmuch as the assessments for city and State taxes are levied together and are identical, he must strike an average between the two reductions. What the average should be I do not profess to determine. My private opinion—a mere opinion, of course—is that 50 per cent. would be about right.
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