the creation of supervisory districts and the appointment of supervisors; the origination of the use of stamps for the collection of taxes on distilled spirits, fermented liquors, tobacco, and the sales of stockbrokers (the last in place of a general tax of one twentieth of one per cent on sales); and the creation and organization of the Bureau of Statistics as a branch of the national Treasury. These modifications brought the internal revenue duties within a reasonable compass, introduced systems where the want of it was working mischief, and by their ready application in administration reconciled the people to a maintenance of important sources of revenue and a continuance of taxes, which have by their stability and steady increase enabled the Government to meet financial exigencies otherwise awkward and dangerous. The service thus rendered met with recognition at the time both in and out of Congress, and was strongly indorsed by those most interested—the head of the Treasury and the industries taxed.[1]
The work of taking down the vast and complicated structure of internal taxation, which had been built up during the war, having been once seriously entered upon by Congress (in 1866), it was prosecuted so vigorously that in the comparatively short space of three years the aggregate annual receipts from such taxes were reduced from $310,906,000 in 1866 to $160,039,000 in 1869—a reduction of $150,865,000—and to $102,644,000 in 1872, a further reduction of $57,395,000; while the sources of revenue, the annual receipts from each one of which were specifically reported, were reduced from about two hundred and seventy-five in 1866 to nominally sixty-six in 1872; but practically to three—distilled spirits, fermented liquors, and tobacco—the receipts from which alone in 1893 were $150,865,000 as compared with $91,464,000 in 1872. It should, however, be noted that this remarkable increase of revenue, coincident with a large reduction in the number of taxed articles, was due mainly to an increase of consumption consequent upon an increase of population during the period under consideration (26,230,000) rather than to any
- ↑ "I do not believe that any man appointed by the Government in the civil war has done for his country more work, and more valuable work, than David A. Wells. Into the financial chaos resulting from the war he threw the whole weight of a strong, clear mind, guided by an honest heart, and he has done more, in my judgment, to bring order out of chaos than any one man in the United States." (Speech of General James A. Garfield, Member of Congress, United States House of Representatives, July 13, 1868)
"There are few of my official acts that I look upon with more satisfaction than the appointment of David A. Wells to be Revenue Commissioner. All the reports that were made by him exhibited the most careful, painstaking, and intelligent investigation. In clearness and accuracy of statement, and in logical force, they have not been surpassed on either side of the Atlantic. Their ability was admitted, even by those who disagreed with the writer in his conclusions."—(Men and Measures of Half a Century, by Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury during the Administrations of Presidents Lincoln, Johnson, and Arthur.)
