On this day in Labor History the years was 1935.
That was the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Revenue Tax Act, more popularly known as the “Wealth Tax.”
The act reformed the federal income tax to raise rates on the wealthiest in the nation.
Those making over $5 million could pay taxes up to seventy-five percent.
In a speech to Congress that summer, Roosevelt had explained his thoughts on wealth and taxes.
The President said,
“Wealth in the modern world does not come merely from individual effort;
it results from a combination of individual effort and of the manifold uses to which the community puts that effort.
The individual does not create the product of his industry with his own hands;
he utilizes the many processes and forces of mass production to meet the demands of a national and international market.
Therefore, in spite of the great importance in our national life of the efforts and ingenuity of unusual individuals,
the people in the mass have inevitably helped to make large fortunes possible.
Without mass cooperation great accumulations of wealth would 'be 'impossible save by unhealthy speculation.
As Andrew Carnegie put it, "Where wealth accrues honorably, the people are · always silent partners."
Whether it be wealth achieved through the cooperation of the entire community or riches gained by speculation—in either case the ownership of such wealth or riches represents a great public interest and a great ability to pay.”
Although President Roosevelt tried to win over the nation's wealthy by quoting industrialist Andrew Carnegie, he did not gain their support.
Not surprisingly many of the national’s wealthy lobbied for and used tax loopholes to evade paying the new rates.
February 21 - The First Female Telephone Operator
February 20 - Angelina Grimke is Born
February 19 - Philly Street Car Workers Spark General Strike
February 18 - Anti-Slavery Begins in America
February 17 - Standing Up By Sitting Down
February 16 - The Wisconsin Uprising Begins
February 15 - The Uprising of the 20,000 Comes to a Close
February 14 - Kansas City Laundresses Walk Off the Job
February 13 - Martial Law Declared to Crush the UAW
February 12 - The NAACP is Founded
February 11 - Cutting Corners on Safety at Sequoyah I
February 10 - Forty-Three Workers Buried Alive
February 9 - Organizing Bloody Harlan
February 8 - Butte Copper Miners Join the 1919 Strike Wave
February 7 - Strike at Cripple Creek
February 6 - Philly Garment Workers Win!
February 5 - The Fight for Craft Governance
February 4 - Solidarity on the Coast
February 3 - Anti-Trust Injunctions Used Against Labor
February 2 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
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