Where's the rest of this new york times editorial?

May 28, 2013 8:04 AM

This quote has been going around various friend's facebook pages, supposedly from a NYT editorial opposing the 16th Amendment. I can't find the rest of the article, and would like to see the context for the quote. Any leads online or offline where I could check it out?

"When men get in the habit of helping themselves to the property of others, they cannot be easily cured of it."

I'd love to know what kind of argument the full NYT editorial was making against income taxes in 1909.

posted by Potomac Avenue to Law & Government (6 answers total)

Unless it is a paraphrase and not a direct quote, this line does not appear in any issue of the NYT during 1909, courtesy their own online archives. I can run a search for the generalized "income tax" topic but it would take a pretty long time, as the articles themselves are only in pdf version and I'd have to scan each one individually for a similar phrase.

and lbr i'm not gonna do that
posted by elizardbits at 8:19 AM on May 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Here.

You'll note that the editorial complains that the loudest demands for an income tax come from the "Populistic States" (the plains, Texas, the mountain west) and that the burden will fall on the populous and wealthy states of the northeast. So it's actually a version of the "net payers vs net takers" argument, which is perhaps not what the people posting that quote intended.
posted by holgate at 8:19 AM on May 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

Best answer: this line does not appear in any issue of the NYT during 1909

The NYT's OCR isn't always great for older articles. This is what it's parsed as:

yvhen men once get the habit of helping themselves, to the prop.rty of others they are not easily-cured' of it.

posted by holgate at 8:21 AM on May 28, 2013

Best answer: The quote appears to have been popularized in this 1996 Heritage Foundation lecture.
posted by designbot at 8:25 AM on May 28, 2013

Response by poster: How do I mark Elizards answer as "Worst/Wrong"? (jk :p)

Thanks y'all! I'm definitely not an archives search wizard.

Very confusing editorial, in that the speakers seems to be totally for an income tax but thinks an amendment would overly burden the states with the highest income. Now, those exact same states continue to have both the highest taxes and the most jobs and money.

This isn't going to help me stump the quoters by associating them with crazy 1909 nonsense, but at the very least it is clear that what the editorial thought would come to pass (a tyranny of the rural states over the urban) didn't at all happen (mostly).
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:32 AM on May 28, 2013

but at the very least it is clear that what the editorial thought would come to pass (a tyranny of the rural states over the urban) didn't at all happen (mostly).

Insofar as the tyranny of the rural has come to pass, it seems to me more an effect of the electoral college and the crazy modern primary system, interestingly.
posted by aught at 8:49 AM on May 28, 2013 [3 favorites]