Excerpt from Speech of Hon.: David B. Hill of New York in the Senate of the United States, Against the Income-Tax Features of the Wilson Tariff Bill, Monday, April 9, 1894

On the 4th of March, 1893, the President became vested with exclusive power to convene Congress earlier than the law day, for the purpose reaffirmed in his election. He decided to prolong the operation of the McKinley tariff for at least another year. The delay thus imposed upon the peoples reforming zeal it is vain to regret. In the mean time the monetary panic unfortunately precipitated upon us has not only made havoc of our private industries, but has dried up the public revenues.

The Treasury Deficit.

The size of the Treasury deficit at the close of the current fiscal year has twice been estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury.

On the 19th of December he took its measure. On the 15th of January he took its measure, the measure of the same deficit, to accrue on the 30th of June, 1894.

These two measures of the same thing, taken twenty-seven days apart, are not perfectly identical. In his annual report the Secretary of the Treasury in formed Congress of a deficit for the current fiscal year of $28, 000, 000.

A short month later, in his letter to the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the same Secretary of the Treasury finds the same deficit to be $78, 000, 000.

It may be unjust to the Secretary of the Treasury, as well as absurd in itself, to assume that suggestions in his annual report made when he thought the deficit of the current fiscal year to be $28, 000, O00 stand good after his discovery a month later that the size of the deficit is $78, 000, 000.

The same observation would apply to the Presidents message last December 4, dealing as he said with "existing conditions, " which in fact have ceased to exist, and prefiguring a bill "on the lines herein suggested" (to wit, in his message), warranted by him "to produce sufficient revenue to meet the needs of the Government, " when those needs were underestimated $50, 000, 000. Yet the Wilson bill, framed originally upon the theory suggested by these high officials in their annual communications to Congress, underwent no material change during its progress through the House, notwithstanding the altered situation. The theory survived its conditions.

In the face of the prostration of private industries, and in the presence of such a paralysis of all general business as the Treasury deficit attests and prolongs, this bill as framed by its authors and as passed by the House sought to double the deficit by discarding customs revenue and to fill the void with an income tax.

The Protest Of New York.

Against such a scheme- unnecessary, ill-timed, and mischievous- suddenly sprung upon the country in the hour of its distress, un-Democratic in its nature and socialistic in its tendencies- I enter the protest of the people of the State of New York. They utterly dissent from any proposal to get revenue for the General Government by taxing incomes. Their dissent is practically unanimous and altogether implacable.

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