Baltimore Evening Sun (14 August 1912): 6.

Why the high cost of living? Why does a beefsteak cost three times as much today as it cost in 1860? Who or what lowers the Plimsoll foam mark on the seidel of the kaifs? Various sages give widely different answers. One blames it all upon the avarice of middlemen. Another accuses the tariff. A third denounces the plain people for their growing luxuriousness. A fourth comes forward with some interminable and occult explanation, comprehensible only to theosophists and political economists. A fifth argues that our currency is not elastic enough. A sixth curses the railroads. A seventh, sidestepping the diagnosis entirely, offers Socialism or the Single Tax as the one cure. And so on, and so on. Every wizard has his own route to the secret, and every route leads in a new direction.

Can it be that all of these gentlemen forget something--that everyone, seeking far afield, has overlooked an explanation nearer home? In brief, do they not all err by taking no account of an overhead charge that has been increasing by leaps and bounds for two generations--the great charge, to wit, of government, the infernally high cost of stupidity and extravagance in public office? Isn’t it quite true that a billion-dollar Congress lays as heavy a burden upon us as an iniquitous wool schedule? Isn’t it just as reasonable to blame the City Hall for our local woes as to blame Lexington Market?

Let us look into the matter. Let us find out how much it cost us to be governed last year. Beginning with the Federal Government, it appears that its total ordinary receipts for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1911--the last reported were $701,372,875. So much from customs duties, internal revenue and minor governmental trading. In addition, it received millions from the sale of bonds and from other so-called extraordinary sources. Every dollar was our money and we will never get a cent back. Put the whole at $1,000,000 and pass on to the State of Maryland.

According to Comptroller Charles H. Stanley, the total receipts of the State, for the fiscal year ended September 30 last, were $8,706,493.45. Of this sum $6,058,290 went to the “dedicated funds”–i. e., was spent for special purposes determined by specific legislation--and so only $2,648,203 was used for the running expenses of the State. But we had to pay the $6,058,290 as well as the $2,649,203--and meanwhile the State debt increased $2,899,000, which means heavier taxes tomorrow.

The city next. According to Comptroller James F. Thrift, direct taxes during the fiscal year ended December 31, 1911, yielded $8,623,175. But that was less than half of the total income of the city. Nearly $10,000,000 additional was received in licenses, water rents, fines and fees, and by the sale of bonds. In all, the city got $18,415,085.11 from the people--and spent just $7,899.20 more, or $18,422,984.81. And, meanwhile the City Fathers (or the people directly) appropriate $21,310,281.90, or say $60,000 a day!

Now for the burden on the individual. The average Marylander, it may be safely assumed, is just about equal in wealth to the average American. The people of some States are richer and those of other States are poorer. Here there is a prosperous mean. Therefore, we may consider the average Marylander an average American and put his share of the costs of the Federal Government at 1-92,000,000th of the whole. Disregarding the probable difference between county man and city man, this makes each Baltimorean’s share $10.90. In other words, that is what it cost each of us, man, woman and child, to support the Federal Government last year.

In the State, assuming the population in 1911 to have been 1,310,000, the per capita cost of government was but $6.65, but that was for the whole population, and, as Mr. DeCourcy W. Thom has so eloquently demonstrated, the burden upon every Baltimorean, as opposed to every county man, was far higher. Baltimore has less than half of the State’s population, but it pays 78 per cent. of the State’s expenses. Allowing for this, it appears that each Baltimorean, man, woman or child (assuming the population of the city to have been 564,000) contributed $13 last year.

The burden of taxation in the city itself is easily calculated. Divide 564,000 into $18,415,086.11, and you have it--say $32.65. Now add this $32.65 to $12 and $10.90, and you have the whole amount that each Baltimorean paid last year for the charms and privileges of government--to wit, $55.55, or rather more than $1 a week.

But every Baltimorean, it must be obvious, did not contribute, either directly or indirectly. The burden of taxation, in the last analysis, is borne only by those who labor or have capital invested--that is to say, by the active members of the community. Children pay no taxes; thousands of women pay no taxes. It would be safe here, I suppose, to assume that not more than one-third of the people of Baltimore are direct wage earners or capitalists. If that is correct, then the cost falling upon each of them who is was three times $55.55, or $166.66, which works out to $3.20 a week.

Think what this means! The average income of an American, I believe, is $12 a week. So, at least, it has been calculated by the Federal Bureau of Labor. Assume, for argument’s sake, that the average Baltimore worker, man or woman, makes half again as much, or $18. Even so, the cost of government amounts to 17.2 per cent. of his total income. Every time he receives a dollar the Government takes 17 1-5 cents! No wonder he finds the cost of living high!

In all this, I admit, I traverse unfamiliar and dangerous ground. I am no mathematician. Statistics flabbergast me. But certainly I have shown enough to prove that the matter is worth investigating. In 1800 the receipts of the Federal Government were $2 per capita. In 1850 they were even less. Today they are nearly $11. And so with the State and the city. In the year 1900 the city of Baltimore appropriated $7,379,819.80. Last year it appropriated more than $21,000,000–and this year’s appropriations are above $23,500,000. An increase of more than 200 per cent. in 12 years. And meanwhile the taxable basis has increased less than half as much, and the population has increased but 11 per cent.

Boil your drinking water! Cover your garbage oan! Send in your mite for the Harry statue! Watch out for Burns!

Col. Jacobus Hook, if he were at home, would give a box of cigars and his blessing to every tax bailiff canned by the camorra.–Adv.