INTRODUCTION

THE Indianapolis Conference marked an important milestone in the history of the National Tax Association. In holding its tenth annual conference our minds turned naturally to the appraisal of results accomplished and the forecasting of even better things for the future. The anniversary spirit likewise attracted the attention of all to the man whose farsighted vision and loyal efforts brought the National Tax Association into being and kept it alive during its early years. It was a pleasure and a privilege to do honor to our founder and first president, Allen Ripley Foote. Mr. Purdy, as temporary chairman at the first session, voiced the sentiments of the delegates so faithfully and so gracefully that no further word is needed here.

The introduction to this anniversary volume would seem a fitting place to evaluate the association's work and accomplishment since its birth in 1907. This must be only a brief review of a record which is given the fuller attention it deserves by Mr. Foote in his address at the first session.

The National Tax Association has not devoted itself to propaganda. It is essentially an educational movement. As such its influence must necessarily be indirect and its accomplishment often intangible. As we look back over the history of taxation during the past ten years, it is evident that progress has been made along many lines. No less evident is the fact that this progress owes much to the influence of the National Tax Association. Moreover, we must remember that the instrumentality we furnish is one of ideas-written and spoken-and of personal contact. Even when direct results cannot be affirmed, who can deny that the acquaintanceships developed through the conferences, ripening as they have done into correspondence, comparison of ideas, experimentation, etc., have been a very active agency in the improvements noticeable in these years?

First and most important of all, the National Tax Association has fostered and extended the serious study of taxation by those administrative officials and large taxpayers who are most vitally concerned. The association must be catholic in its composition and sympathies; it must give a hearing to every interest and every kind of opinion; it must conduct no propaganda. Notwithstanding these limitations, the association has inspired a great number of tax reforms. It has been able to do this by giving expression to an unceasing criticism of all that is unenlightened and inefficient in American taxation, criticism that has been sympathetic and constructive as well as honest; and, above all, open and above-board. It has educated unceasingly for better and more businesslike methods of taxation. It has done this by publishing ten volumes of proceedings, a monthly journal, and hundreds of pamphlets. More important still, it has brought the administrative officials of the country in touch with one another so that the methods and point of view of the most advanced states and the most skilled administrators have come to be the common property and common standards of all. It has created a professional spirit and pride among "tax men". It has made the representative of the backward state a little ashamed of that backwardness and more determined to bring his state abreast of the most advanced commonwealth. It has, in particular, served as an invaluable school to those special tax commissions which are appointed so frequently in the several states and which have found in its conferences a mine of information and an inexhaustible source of helpful suggestion. It is not necessary that the National Tax Association should adopt any particular program. It is sufficient that it should give expression to the best informed thought and ripest administrative experience in the field of taxation. The seeker for truth will, in the long run, select from what is offered that which best serves his needs more surely than any authority could hand down to him, ex cathedra, the one true faith. It is not only the practical men who have benefited. One of the best features of the National Tax Association has been its service in bringing the academic students of taxation into contact with the men who are doing the practical work of

legislation and administration. The practical world sometimes scoffs at the "theories" of the economists, and sometimes with good reason. What the latter need is exactly this contact with practical problems and practical men, and there can be no doubt that the National Tax Association has thus contributed much toward a truer appreciation of tax history and a sounder tax theory.

Further, as to its educational work, the most notable accomplishment of the National Tax Association is, perhaps, to be found in the state tax associations whose formation it has assisted or inspired. The North Dakota Tax Association, the Michigan Tax Association, the New York State Tax Association, the Taxpayers' Associations of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, the New England Tax Officials' Association, the Tax Association of Rhode Island, the Indiana Association, and the Idaho Association are illustrations of vigorous and helpful organizations which have been stimulated and influenced by the example of the National Tax Association. These and similar associations in other parts of the United States multiply the educational work of the National Tax Association, each in its own district elevating the standards of tax legislation and practice and constituting an active force for economy and efficiency in public expenditures.

While it is a cardinal tenet of the National Tax Association that it conduct no propaganda, it feels free to exercise its influence and prestige in favor of a few fundamental betterments which have substantially the unanimous support of its membership, and along these lines the association has been a powerful factor in achieving positive tax reforms. Thus, it has repeatedly emphasized the evils of the general property tax at a uniform rate upon all forms of property; and its pronouncements and suggestions have played an important part in modifying the general property tax and in legalizing the principle of classification in Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and elsewhere.

Similarly, the National Tax Association has not hesitated to throw the weight of its influence in favor of strong cen