We should discourage the building up of non-taxable interests, and yet we should discourage driving property out of the State by unwise taxation, or levying a tax which is in effect largely a tax upon honesty.

There is evident injustice in the light taxation of corporations.

Most of the great material works by which the entire country benefits have been due to the action of individual men, or of aggregates of men, who made money for themselves by doing that which was in the interest of the people as a whole.

From an armor plant to a street railway no work which is really beneficial to the public can be performed to the best advantage of the public save by men of such business capacity that they will not do the work unless they themselves…

The effort to deprive them of an ample reward, merely means that they will turn their energies in some other direction; and the public will be by just so much the loser.

Moreover, to tax corporations or men of means in such a way as to drive them out of the State works great damage to the State.

To drive out of a community the men of means and the men who take the lead in business enterprises would probably entail, as one of its first results, the starvation of a considerable portion of the remainder of the population.

But while I freely admit all this, it yet remains true that a corporation which derives its powers from the State should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys.

Many representatives of corporations owning franchises heartily approve of having them properly taxed; and I am confident that, in the end, this will be of positive benefit to the franchise owners, and in no way oppressive to them, save as…

The line of cleavage between good and bad citizenship does not follow the line dividing the men who represent corporate interests from the men who do not; it runs at right angles to it.

We are bound to recognize this fact, to remember that we should stand for good citizenship in every form, and should neither yield to demagogic influence on the one hand, nor to improper corporate influence on the other.

We recognize that, as in the case of all legitimate business, they benefit not only themselves but the community at large.

If a franchise is worth very little, it should be taxed very little; but where the franchise is of great value, it certainly should be heavily taxed; and the value is of course based upon the use of the city’s or State’s real estate.

I am perfectly well aware that as Chief Justice Marshall says: “The power of taxation is the power of destruction.” But this applies to every species of property.

If demagogues or ignorant enthusiasts who are misled by demagogues could succeed in destroying wealth, they would of course simply work the ruin of the entire community; and first of all, of the unfortunates for whom they profess to feel…

But the very existence of unreasoning hostility to wealth should make us all the more careful in seeing that wealth does nothing to justify such hostility.

We are the true friends of the men of means, we are the true friends of the lawful corporate interests which do good work for the community, when we insist that the man of means and the great corporation shall pay their full share of taxes…

If this is done, then sooner or later will follow public recognition of the fact that it is done; and when there is no legitimate basis for discontent, the American public is sure sooner or later to cease to feel discontent.

After much study of the question, I am convinced that in this way we can come nearer to doing justice than in any other which has as yet been proposed.

The right to lay a railroad track and operate a railroad in a public street can not be separated or dissociated from the railroad itself.

The franchise is a necessary and inevitable element of value and is a proper subject of consideration in determining the taxable value of the real property of the corporation enjoying it.

In no other way is it possible to tax these corporations with uniformity and equity.

There can be no possible opposition to putting it in the law by any man who is anxious to tax corporations as other property is taxed, and who believes that this end can be attained by taxing them as realty.

Either by taxing them as realty we shall tax them at their full value, or we shall not; if, as we hold, the former is the case, it would be unjust to tax them for more than their full value, and this would happen were not these existing…

Absolute equality, absolute justice in matters of taxation will probably never be realized; but we can approximate it much more closely than at present.