MR. EVAN B. STOTSENBURG: Mr. Chairman and Members of the National Tax Conference, on behalf of the governor of the state and of the mayor of the city of Indianapolis, both of whom are unavoidable absent this afternoon, I speak to you. You have come together from distant states to confer and to consider the most perplexing question of this progressive era. Reforms in government, reforms in industrial life, reforms in health measures and the manner of living of our citizens, in conformity with the enlightenment and the humane spirit of the age, are constantly demanding increased expenditures of the public moneys. There is in this land of ours today a sentiment and demand for preparedness, and this calls for the expenditure of great sums, which must come either directly or indirectly from the people. And there is also a growing demand for better roads, which means additional revenue. These examples are sufficient to show the new demands which are being made upon our public exchequers. It is known that the expenses of federal and state governments have gradually increased, and it is recognized that in the future they will continue to increase. You who are associated together in the effort to solve this question of taxation are, on the one hand, confronted with this problem of increasing expenditures, while, on the other, you are confronted with the fact that the amount of personal and intangible property returned for taxation is constantly decreasing. The problem that you have to solve is how sufficient revenue is to be raised to meet the needs of the state and local governments, considering these increasing needs and these diminishing sources of revenue. It must, of course, be raised by taxation in some form, but taxation that is not just or equitable or fair to all classes of property is akin to legalized pillage. If you succeed in solving this problem and are at the same time able to be fair and just to all classes of taxpayers, you will have performed a great service for the people of your respective states. We in Indiana have a very excellent tax law of its class. We believe that it can be improved upon, and to that end the last legislature provided for a commission to study the question and to report the result of its investigations with its recommendations to the next general assembly, which meets in January. This commission will attend your session and, I am sure, will derive much benefit therefrom. On behalf of the governor of Indiana I welcome you to our state. On behalf of the mayor of the city of Indianapolis I welcome you to our capital city. Speaking, I hope, with proper modesty, let me assure you that you are here today meeting in the greatest and best state in the Union; and I further assure you that you are meeting in the greatest and best inland city in the world; and this I say with proper modesty. And I assure you that when you meet Governor Ralston, as I hope you will be able to during your stay with us, you will find him one of the greatest and best governors that you have ever had the pleasure of meeting. And for the people of Indiana, it can be said without any apology that they are the best that will be found anywhere. You see, while we in Indiana are inclined to be modest, we do not believe altogether in hiding our lights. The committee in charge has taken all necessary steps for your deliberations and your proper entertainment and has prepared to give you a royal Hoosier welcome. I sincerely hope that your meeting will not only be a pleasant one, but also a successful and profitable one, and that you may arrive at such a conclusion as will be to the interest of all our people, without regard to their stations in life, and such a one as will be fair and just and equitable to all. Again I bid you welcome to our state and to our city. CHAIRMAN PURDY: We are grateful to the attorney general for his kindly and helpful words, and to him and the governor for the welcome they have given to us and for what they have done to facilitate our deliberations at this our tenth annual conference. This is the anniversary of the founding of the National Tax Conference. Those conferences had their start because of the idea of one man and because of the courage that he had in starting. It is now seventeen years ago this coming October that I first heard of Allen Ripley Foote. I was on the train from New York City to Utica, New York, to attend a state economists' convention, and a gentleman of my acquaintance, Dr. Robinson, came up to me and said a young friend of his had written a paper on taxation and he wished I would read it at the convention because he was unable to be present. I said I would be glad to look it over and if it were readable I should be pleased to read it. I read it over; it was very short. To my intense surprise I found in it certain suggestions that I thought were unknown to more than a half dozen persons besides myself, that had never been given to the press, never been published. The paper interested me very much. I told Dr. Robinson it would give me great pleasure to read it, which I did; and that paper was by Allen Ripley Foote, the young friend of Dr. Robinson. It was not long after that I met him in person. My reading his paper had made him in some sort acquainted with me and I with him, and there began a friendship that will last so long as we are here. I found that he entertained views on public questions that were new to me and that I looked upon with doubt as visions of a dreamer. He looked in various ways for a better time than I supposed could come by the means he proposed. He showed me then that it was possible to regulate and control the operations of public service corporations in such fashion that they should render good service, that they should not be oppressed with unnecessary taxation, and that, on the other hand, they should not oppress those who paid them for service. He described the functions of a regulating commission, then unknown, in the form in which we have it now. It was at that time that he was publishing a paper known as Public Policy. For several years, under great difficulties, that paper came out regularly, and while it lasted was a source of instruction and of help to many throughout the country. A little after my meeting with him in 1899 he went to Ohio. There he put new life into an old association known as the Ohio State Board of Trade, and through that association brought to the state of Ohio a uniform public accounting law. Other laws came as a result in large part of his devising, his initiative, and the enthusiasm that he infused into business men throughout the state of Ohio. He was interested in amending and improving the tax laws of Ohio. To bring that about it seemed that it would be help ful if similar movements could be started in many other states; that such movements could be promoted by a national body that would continually press forward toward better things; that the national association would be helpful not only in Ohio. but everywhere: and so practically alone with very little help from money from outside-he conceived and put through the plan of calling a conference of delegates appointed by the governors of the several states of the United States. I confess that the plan looked to me to be beyond the means of the few he gathered about him and beyond the power that he could bring to it, because during all these years, as you can well understand, the life of a man publishing his own newspaper without large circulation, doing reform work, was not an easy life so far as money was concerned. But never did he seem to be disturbed or depressed by the lack of money. When he said, "Let us call a national conference," there was the faith there that moved mountains, even if money was lacking. Many of you know somewhat the history of these last ten years. During the earlier years of the National Tax Association it was no easy task to keep it going. It was no easy task to gather from so many states the men who would be helpful and take up the work and push it along. I hold in my hand a little pamphlet. It lists some of the books and papers that have been written by Mr. Foote during the last thirty years. Doubtless he would send you a copy if you asked him for it, and if you will glance over it you will be amazed at the way in which this man has pioneered in different fields, always keeping ahead of the best thought of his day. He began early, too, for he enlisted in the Northern army in the Civil War, went to the front, was wounded and invalidated home, got himself re-enlisted again, although the doctors told him he could not, and went to the front and served to the end of the war. The spirit of that early youth has been with him right down to the present time, and today it may be said of him, as it was of an old friend of mine in New York, he is a good many years young, but he is not old. And through good report and sometimes through evil report, sometimes in the face of misunderstanding, he has kept a straight course, kept faith with himself, always believing in the consciousness and in the intelligence of the people of the United States when a proper appeal could be made to that consciousness, to that intelligence; and that, after all, is the only basis upon which we can found success for our states and for the Union. It gives me a great deal of pleasure this afternoon to introduce him whom I may now call my old friend, Mr. Allen Ripley Foote. THE BIRTH, WORK, AND FUTURE OF THE ALLEN RIPLEY FOOTE Honorary President and Founder of the National Tax Association INTRODUCTION I esteem it a high privilege and a great honor to be given on this occasion-The Tenth Annual Conference of the National Tax Association-the opportunity to place on record a review of the birth and work of this association; to express some opinions of my own, and then to say some words regarding its future. The forces that work for the betterment of human life are never dependent upon the action of a single mind. All movements with such a purpose have their inception in inspired reason and the stern teachings of experience. When such movements begin, no finite mind may know. They are the product of all past life reaching back to the beginning of human experience. When a movement of this character is to be born, numbers of growing minds, widely separated, frequently unknown or but little known to each other, have dreams which prepare them to co-operate with others in doing the work necessary to make their dreams come true. The heart of every government is in its system of taxation. Only through the efficient action of this heart can a government draw the money-the life blood that is absolutely necessary to support its life and give it power-from the sources of its production. No government can be perfect without a perfect system of |