earning to the non-resident is made the responsible withholding agent for the amount of the tax if the tax is not paid by the non-resident himself. The rate in the bill was first fixed at a flat 2 per cent for everybody, and 2 per cent would then have been the amount which the withholding agent would be responsible for deducting from the salary or earning. But at the last moment a graduated rate of 1 per cent up to $10,000, 2 per cent up to $50,000, and 3 per cent above that was determined upon, but by inadvertence no change was made in the provision about the responsibility of the withholding agent, and so the act as passed seems to make the withholding agent responsible for deducting 2 per cent on a person's income of $10,000, whereas the tax was finally fixed at only 1 per cent. But if the non-resident pays directly his tax of per cent, no trouble would arise from this minor error, as the withholding agent would then be free from all responsibility under the terms of the act. And of course this inadvertence also will be corrected early in the next legislative session, some months before the law goes into operation. And in the meantime the Comptroller may, if he wishes, prepare his preliminary form of certificate in line with the amendment that is certain to be made. And the intent of the law is so clear upon this matter that I have no doubt the courts would hold, in any event, that the withholding agent is responsible only up to 1 per cent in case of incomes under $10,000.

1

When we consider also that in order to secure exact justice a reciprocal provision is introduced into the act providing that non-residents shall have rebated to them any tax on New York income which may be imposed by the State of the taxpayer's residence, providing that his home State treats New Yorkers in a substantially similar way; and when we consider that the non-resident in the meantime owes the Government of the State of New York something for the benefit to him of the legal and social and physical protection and opportunity offered to him to accumulate wealth and do business and make earnings in the State, it seems to me that the objection about the non-resident is pretty effectually disposed of.

The inevitable result of American methods of legislation, with its practice of frequently making important changes at the last moment, is the creeping in of occasional minor inconsistencies. But a broad view of the situation will, I think, compel the conclusion that the enactment of this measure, and the important amendment at the same time of the Corporation Tax Act, put New York in the forefront of the movement toward a modern and equitable system of taxation in this country. In no other leading American State has there been taken so long a step toward substituting for the inadequate and unworkable general property tax a system of individual and corporate taxation of high character such as we now have in the State of New York as a result of the action of the Legislature

recently adjourned. The system in New York is now superior in important respects to that of Wisconsin, the only other American State which has seriously grappled with the problem. While there remains something yet to be done in improving the system of taxing public utilities, I find that those who are best informed upon taxation in the country recognize that the revision of the tax system recently made by New York marks an epoch in the history of American finance.

And now as to the chief burden of the criticism by The Outlook, that the substance of the imposition of the tax really puts the cart before the horse, that it is bad procedure to impose an effective income tax, with all its possibilities of increasing the rate and extending the volume of revenue, before adequate effort is made to check wasteful and extravagant and more or less uncontrolled expenditure. Technically this position is correct. Practically it is not.

In the first place, as The Outlook intimates, it was a condition and not a theory which confronted the Legislature. Owing to the modern method of administering certain forms of taxation by the State Government, and then distributing the proceeds between the State and the localities, it has become more and more necessary for States to consider the local and especially the municipal situation in all matters of revenue. As the result of the prospective wiping out of the excise revenues through war-time and Constitutional prohibition, and as the result also of the mounting costs of labor and commodities and personal services growing out of war-price conditions, the State and the municipalities of New York were suddenly confronted with a prospective deficit for the current year of about fifty-three million dollars. Now real estate is heavily burdened already. Personal property has proved itself generally in this country, and especially in the State of New York, a most elusive source of revenue. The so-called indirect taxes, like those upon inheritances and mortgages and motor vehicles, might be made to produce a few extra millions; but all the suggestions together would not begin to produce fifty-three millions. There was only one possible source left to which to turn, and that was income.

Now to continue still to be practical. In private expenditure, and theoretically in any kind of expenditure, the first thing to do would be to check waste and extravagance and begin to shut the sluicegates of financial folly, so far as there is any. But that is not the way it happens in the case of public expenditure. The great difficulty about checking extravagance in commonwealth or nation through the introduction of a thorough budget system is that this reform breaks down the sanctified system of special appropriations for particular districts under the easy method of " you tickle me and I'll tickle you." There is so much good and easy politics in that from the legislator's standpoint that it takes something more

than the statesmanship of financial idealism to alter it. It begins to be altered only when the taxpayer himself for the first time begins directly to feel the pinch of it, and that is precisely what happens when the direct and personal income tax is laid upon the citizen. The Congress of the United States seems to be about to establish a National budget system to check the flow of uncontrolled extravagance, but that prospectively happy issue out of our afflictions might not have come for a generation-it has already been talked about for a generation-if it had not been for the direct pressure and burden of the Federal income tax upon the citizen. Now something will no doubt be done about it.

The same thing, in my opinion, will happen in the States as they adopt the direct income tax and push the pressure of it down to reach justly as many persons as possible. The demand for a thorough State and municipal budget system and the control of expenditure in a vigorous fashion will then grow by leaps and bounds. And I can see no other practical way. So, instead of its being haphazard financial procedure to impose a State income tax before expenditure is checked, as The Outlook seems to think, I regard it as the most direct, designed, and certain way of beginning to accomplish a greatly to be desired end.

In fact, it has long seemed to me that the direct personal income tax is particularly needed by the separate commonwealths of the Union, not only as a means of financial reinvigoration, but as a means of obtaining in the States a more sensitive and critical citizenship. The tide of nationality is running full and strong, and will run stronger; and the eye of the citizen is becoming very critical upon Washington. There would seem to be no need, save in times of emergency, for the employment in any high degree of the income tax by the National Government. The National Government has not yet begun to tap the legitimate indirect sources which are so naturally available for Federal purposes.

If the Government of the country is not to grow top-heavy and topple over, if centralization at Washington is not to become increasingly dangerous to freedom, then something must be done to make the local State governments strong and efficient and to fix the attention of the citizen upon his own commonwealth and its increasingly important function under our Federal system. If free government fails in America, it will be because the State governments fail. My own view is that the best thing which could happen to the financial system of the separate States would be the imitation of the action of New York and the adoption of the income tax principle throughout the commonwealths of the Union. There is no tax which so brings the taxpayer to close quarters with Government revenues and expenditures or so practically brings home to him the responsibility of citizenship.

[Those who are using the weekly outline should not attempt to cover the whole of an outline in any one lesson or study. Assign for one lesson selected questions, one or two propositions for discussion, and only such words as are found in the material assigned. Or distribute selected questions among different members of the class or group and have them report their findings to all when assembled. Then have all discuss the questions together.]

I-INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

A. Topic: The Church and Social Reconstruction; A Great Educational Scheme; To Fight Disease and Destitution; The Children's Bureau Conference; The Farmer's Boy and the School.

Reference: Pages 182, 184.
Questions:

1. What are the things the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church urge that the Church favor? Do you think the pulpit should have anything to do with such subjects? Reasons. 2. What are the principles and the spirit of Christ's teachings? If these were applied to modern industry, what changes, in your opinion, would have to take place in the management of industry? 3. Could a person or a corporation that believed in practicing Christian principles conduct a successful modern business? Discuss. 4. State the facts about and then discuss the value of the great educational scheme explained by The Outlook on page 182. 5. What, in your opinion, are the practical, personal, and National moral values in supporting the new League of Red Cross Societies? 6. Tell very briefly your personal opinion of each one of the topics discussed at the Washington conference on child wefare. 7. Discuss at some length the physical, the economic, and the social values of keeping children in school until they are eighteen years of age. 8. Describe and tell the importance of the Juvenile Court, a distinctly American institution. Is not the home really responsible for juvenile offenders? Discuss. 9. Tell why, in your opinion, the United States has never attacked the problem of rural child labor and the lack of schooling that goes with it. Discuss the importance of attacking this problem. 10. In connection with this topic read "The New Citizenship," by A. T. Robertson (Revell), and "Social Problems," by E. T. Towne (Macmillan).

B. Topic: What the Bolshevists Have Done to Russia; The War's Effect Upon Our Economic Philosophy; America and Russia-A Contrast. Reference: Pages 193-196; 203-205; 185. Questions:

Note. At least three lessons should be. devoted to this topic. 1. What is Mr. Carasso's explanation of the "bitter lifeand-death struggle between peasant and soviet"? Who comprise the soviets? What are they? 2. Is Bolshevism an anti-religious affair? Reasons. 3. Give a summary of what Dr. Carasso says about Bolshevism and education. What is your explanation

of the Bolshevist attitude toward education? 4. Do you think the treatment of the Russian aristocracy by the Bolshevists justifiable? Tell why or why not. 5. State and discuss what Dr. Carasso believes the world's task with regard to Bolshevism is. 6. Select ten sentences from Mr. Price's article which you consider well worth discussing and explain why you think them worth discussing. 7. What does the expression "the injustices of individualism." mean? Do you believe in "a greater degree of welfare for common laborers? Reasons. 8. What is a commodity? Is labor such? Discuss at length. 9. The Outlook says: "The Socialism that Mr. Price discusses and the Socialism which the Bolshevists are practicing are as wide as the poles apart." Show why. 10. Many believe America stands greatly in need of economic reconstruction. Show how this could be effected without revolution. 11. Read three very suggestive books: "Progress and History," by F. S. Marvin (Oxford University Press); "The Economics of Progress," by J. M. Robertson (Dutton); "Reconstruction and National Life," by C. F. Lovell (Macmillan).

II-NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Topic: Stupidity in Property and Politics.
Reference: Pages 191-193.
Questions:

1. Judging from what Senator Davenport says, what is the condition of politics in the New York Legislature? Is such a condition peculiar to New York? Proof. 2. To what extent do you think "business interests" control both the economic and the political interests of our country? Discuss. 3. Explain at length the meaning of: "The greatest breeder of Bolshevism and Socialism is blind Bourbonism." Illustrate freely. 4. Senator Davenport believes that had "big business a decade listened to and accepted Mr. Roosevelt and his economic and social convictions, they and America would be much better off to-day. Explain just what Mr. Roosevelt believed in these respects. Do you agree with Mr. Davenport? 5. Read Muzzey's "American History," pages 591-609 (Ginn), and "The Life of Theodore Roosevelt," by W. D. Lewis (Winston).

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IMPORTANT TO SUBSCRIBERS ¶ notify The Outlook of a change in When you address, your both the old and the new address should be given. Kindly write, if possible, two weeks before the change is to take effect.

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THE NEW BOOKS

This Department will include descriptive notes, with or without brief comments, about books received by The Outlook. Many of the important books will have more extended and critical treatment later FICTION

Hohenzollerns in America (The). With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and Other Impossibilities. By Stephen Leacock. The John Lane Company, New York.

Some of the slighter and shorter bits of burlesque writing in this collection strike us as more truly humorous than the overelaborated account of the life of "Uncle William as a peddler in New York living in tenements with his Hohenzollern tribe. Nixola of Wall Street. By Felix Grendon. The Century Company, New York.

Nixola is a girl private secretary with large ability and ambition, and withal a good deal of a coquette in her personal relations to her employer and other admirers. There is satire on excessive efficiency system in business, on art fads, and on social caste.

Rosy. By Louis Dodge. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

A romance of the Ozark Mountains. The situation is odd, improbable, but also convincing-a young girl conceals for months in the farmhouse where she lives her lonely life or in a cave close by a young man who has fled from the draft. Meanwhile the man whom she loves enlists in the other's name, partly from honest patriotism and partly to escape rearrest for a technical crime he has committed to get even with a scoundrel who has ruined his father. The tale is distinctly well written and grasps the attention strongly.

ESSAYS AND CRITICISM Chimney-Pot Papers. By Charles S. Brooks. Illustrated. The Yale University Press, New Haven.

A book fair to the eye and pleasant to the mind. The author wins the sympathy of the reader at the start and keeps it in his many excursions in both objective and subjective realms. There is no conscious attempt at "brilliant" writing, and many readers will like the book all the better for this.

for Community Sings

unless that part of Clemenceau's workthe assuring to France of safeguards against future attack-is established. One needs to be on the ground to realize how absolutely necessary these safeguards are.

A sermon by

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE sent free: no charge whatever Address MISS L. FREEMAN CLARKE 5 Brimmer St., Boston, Mass.

man at many critical stages in his life, and the description is no unqualified panegyric; it is that of a severe critic, who is, paradoxical as it may seem, also an honest admirer. The book shows Clemenceau as

The New Books (Continued)

liable to make the mistakes due to one of
his temperament. But it also shows him in
every respect a "stalwart." No matter
what Clemenceau may say in disparage-
ment of his personality, it is that very.
rugged and commanding personality which,
has not only brought strength to France
but has also given force to her as a prime
factor in the society of nations.

HISTORY, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND POLITICS
Bismarck. By C. Grant Robertson, M.A., C.V.0.

Makers of the Nineteenth Century. Edited by
Basil Williams. Henry Holt & Co., New
York.

Of the making of books about Bismarck there seems to be no end. Many students of German history already have a shelf full of works on Bismarck-biographies and studies concerning the Iron Chancellor's influence. It would seem as if this shelf-full were enough for any student, yet the present volume, coming when one is viewing the wreck of Bismarck's Empire, Ε has a perspective denied to its prede

cessors.

Democracy in Reconstruction. Edited by Frederick A. Cleveland and Joseph Schafer. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.

The somewhat colorless title of this book ought not to restrict its circulation. It contains living, vital discussions of the questions that now confront the world, and may be regarded as essential to all students of reconstruction problems.

Era of the Civil War (The), 1848-1870. By Arthur Charles Cole. The Centennial History of Illinois. Vol. III. Illustrated. Illinois Centennial Commission, Springfield. A period of great interest in the development of one of our greatest States is succinctly and comprehensively described in this book. Numerous illustrations enliven pages.

its

Experiments in International Adminis

tration. By Francis Bowes Sayre. Harper & Brothers, New York.

Mr. Sayre traces the development of the idea of a League of Nations through the centuries, in which the brotherhood of mankind has often been but an empty phrase; now, however, it " may be given a structure of force and reality," for international co-operation has become a necessity. The principal reason for the failure of previous attempts at international administration is, in the author's opinion, because treaties have been written in the interest of rulers rather than of peoples, and because "nations have been unwilling to submit to a sufficient amount of external control to make an effective international executive organ possible." "If the treaty of 1919," he says, "is to succeed where others have failed, it must be founded

upon

the broad interest of peoples," not upon "the narrow ambition and selfish interest of triumphant governments;" moreover, some guaranty must be found" more effective than mere words to make secure the keeping of peace."

WAR BOOKS

Dramatic Story of Old Glory (The). By Samuel Abbott. Foreword by James M. Beck. Illustrated. Boni & Liveright, New York. How the American flag was devised, developed, and carried over the continent and the world-how it received the name "Old

Glory "-how it has maintained its reputation in the world war-all this, with much other relevant information, is here made into a lively and interesting book. Such a story, it would seem, ought to have been further enlivened with color pictures of the flag's evolution.

(C) B & B 1919

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Songs of Liberty

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Songs That Inspire the True Ideals of Americanism

Contains the great Hymns of the Church; the most | For Community Sings, Patriotic Gatherpopular Sacred Songs; the National Airs and Patriotic ings, Sunday Evening Services, Colleges, Songs of all Nations; the popular War Songs of to-day; Public and Private Schools, Boys' Camps, well-known Ballads dear to the heart of every music- Y. M. C. A.'s, Americanization Centers, the lover; the beloved Melodies of the South; and a timely American Home, and wherever a clear arrangement of Scripture Readings. expression of Americanism is desired.

REAL AMERICANISM A SURE BARRIER AGAINST BOLSHEVISM

Teach the Americans of Tomorrow

the good old Moody & Sankey gospel hymns you know and love. There is a splendid collection of these.

the National Airs and Patriotic Songs of our own and all Allied Nations, including the popular War Songs of today.

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