The June 16, 1909 NYT prints an editorial that is 180-degrees out of phase of the current version:

THE CRAZE FOR TAXES

The Treasury deficit for the eleven months and fifteen days of the fiscal year thus far elapsed amounts to $96,542,614 [2,356,679,639 in 2008 dollars]. It is conceded that the Tariff bill now under consideration will not meet the necessities of the Government. The protectionist majority headed by Mr. Aldrich would be entirely unwilling to reduce the customs duties to a point where they would yield the maximum of revenue. They aim at exclusion, and exclusion means no revenue.

The Laffer Curve 70 years early!

The editorial then admits that the opponents of the income tax are starting to buckle and we have them to thank, in part, for our current taxation schemes:

Accordingly the Tariff bill must be pieced out by some measure of taxation that will restore the balance between income and outgo. The income tax has powerful support in Congress, so powerful that its opponents seem willing to compromise on an agreement that a Constitutional amendment shall be submitted to the States, the decision of the Supreme Court declaring unconstitutional our last income tax making a change in the organic law necessary. Early in the session inheritance taxes were talked of a good deal. That seemed to be a good way to put in force the Rooseveltian policy of abridging the fortunes of the excessively rich. Not much is said of that tax now. In its place appears the tax upon the net earnings of corporations, and there is a considerable probability that such a tax may be enacted.

Attempts by government to abridge the wealth of individuals can only be successful when seizure is absolute with no appeal and no ability to avoid the seizure. As this country has not experienced a government that has undertaken such an approach, attempts to abridge the wealth of individuals have essentially failed, to the dismay of our most recent Nobel Prize winning economist. On the other hand, the market can and will abridge the wealth of individuals if the individual makes a mistake. The market does not offer reprieve nor is it swayed by fancy dinners and tickets to a show. Too bad Teddy Roosevelt and his fellow travelers didn't see it that way.

There is a curious report that President Taft favors this tax, not alone because it would produce needed revenue, but "as a decided step forward in carrying out the policy of corporation control." When the taxing power is used for other purposes than raising revenue a wide range of possibilities is opened. The Supreme Court has said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. The note issues of State banks were destroyed by a 10 per cent. tax. The great example of the use of the power of taxation for an indirect purpose is our protective tariff. The protective duties not only produce revenue, they enable the interests they favor to levy for their own enrichment much greater taxes upon the people. That is State Socialism, not for the advantage of all, but for the benefit of a small class. Now we are told that we must levy a new tax upon the corporations as a means of getting them under control.

I am not sure if the theory of State Socialism is grounded in helping the few at the expense of the many, but it seems to work out that way in practice. Nevertheless, the argument that taxation can be and is used to enrich the few at the expense of the many seems germane today.

The editorial delves a little deeper into the philosophical basis for the tax craze:

When the night dogs of Populism break loose all sorts of queer game are chased. It would be futile to import considerations of economic principle and of scientific justice into the discussion of a tax bill framed for the purpose of throttling the corporations. It is because of the deep-rooted, and, in many parts of the country universal, conviction that the corporations are fair game and may be, nay, must be, hunted in and out of season, that while we have at Washington earnest advocacy of an income tax, an inheritance tax, and of a corporation tax, imposts the supporters of which fondly believe would fall upon the fortunes of the rich and leave the poor untouched, not a word is said about a convenient and most productive form of taxation of which we had not long ago an enlightening experience - we mean the stamp tax.

It seems that the conviction that the corporation is the root of all evil, that if it were not for corporations somehow we would ALL have iPhones and BluRay players, and if it were not for corporations we would all have a "living wage" still persists. That the corporation needs to be "under control" is a dangerously open-ended goal. There are "good" controls, perhaps limiting the imposition of negative externalities. There are, it would seem, many more "bad" controls, which force firm owners to do what they would otherwise not do under the threat of the gun.

The editorial goes on to describe how the stamp tax was used to finance, in part, the Spanish-American War and that it's imposition was a minor inconvenience. I am not familiar with the literature investigating this particular policy, so I will take the paper's word for it. The editorial winds up by asking why the stamp tax, which would raise revenue, is being shunned for the bigger prize of income taxes:

In the present state of public and Congressional opinion the defect of the stamp tax is that its burdens would be distributed throughout the community. It would diminish no great fortune, it would not increase the power of the Federal Government over any corporation. But as a means of accomplishing the direct purpose in view, of doing away with the deficit and providing revenue for the expenditures of the Government, the stamp tax has obvious merits. It is easily and quickly put into operation, the cost of administration is trifling, it is patiently borne, and does not provoke protests. At any other time, in a season when men's minds are not so desperately bent upon seeking out new ways for chaining down the corporations, the stamp tax would have many advocates in Congress.