needlessly_ take from them an unduly large
share of the fruit of their labor, let alone all of it except an
arbitrarily fixed sum.

I say "needlessly" because, _were it really needed, business men would
willingly sacrifice their entire income for the country's cause._

They would work for patriotism, without any recompense whatever, just
as hard and harder than they do for gain or for ambition, if the
occasion required it.

But, of course, everyone knows that nothing remotely approaching such
drastic taxation is required in this country at this time.

It is absolutely right to proclaim and to enforce by legislation that
no man, as far as it is possible to prevent it, shall make money _out
of a war_ in which his country is engaged, but there is all the
difference in the world between that just and moral doctrine and
between the doctrine that no man shall be permitted to have more than
an arbitrarily fixed income _during_ a war.

If $100,000 or any fixed sum is the limit of what may be permissible
income during war time, why not by and by a lesser sum?

If the principle is once admitted, where will its application stop,
even in time of peace?

Why is not the proposed plan, or anything in the nature of that plan,
simply license for the materially unsuccessful to despoil the
materially successful?

History shows more than one instance where this road inevitably leads
to when once entered upon.

And who are our successful men? The vast majority of them are self-made
men who started at the bottom of the ladder.

It is trite to say that inequality of endowment and therefore
inequality of results in human beings, as well as in inanimate things,
is a law of nature. The capacity for creating, organizing, leading,
etc., in short, the possession of those qualities of brain and
disposition which beget success, is rare.

It is in the interest of the community, whilst carefully guarding and
fostering the rights, the opportunities and the well-being of all of
its members, to give liberal incentives to men possessing those gifts
to put them to active and intensive use. It is hardly open to doubt
that, generally speaking, the work of able men, engaged in serious and
legitimate business (I am not speaking of gamblers and parasites),
whilst naturally benefiting them, benefits the community a great deal
more.

The income of hospitals, orphan asylums, institutions of learning and
of art and many other altruistic enterprises d