TUN DANBURY REPORTER;
Established 1872. Volume 64.
Q. What's your name?
A. Doctor McDonald.
Q. Where do you live?
A. In Winston-Salem.
Q. How old are you''
A. Thirty-two.
, \ Q. What is your business?
A. I have no business. lam a professor.
Q. Professor of what?
A. My specialty is civil government.
Q. Have you always lived in Winston-Salem,,
doctor?
A. Oh, no. lam a native of Illinois.
Q. When you left Illinois, where did you go?
A. To Arkansas.
Q. And where did you go from there?
A. To North Carolina.
Q. And so you want to be Governor of North
Carolina. You appear to be rather young and
inexperienced for such a big job as governing
North Carolina. What put this notion in your
bead-
A. I can discern the need of a governor who
is able to see the corruption and graft and in
competence which permeate your State govern
j»ent, and who has the courage and ability to
••adicate it.
Q. So you hope to ride into office by an ap
peal to ignorance and prejudice, making our
people believe their government is rotten and
that our State officials are too corrupt and in
competent to manage it, and that you are the
Moses who has come to lead them out of this
wilderness of mismanagement, of dishonesty
and inefficiency, and graft.
A. I am able to carry out my programs, and
I expect to empty the swivel chairs at Raleigh
When I come in.
Q. Well, doctor, when you turn out all the
rascals at Raleigh and empty the swivel chairs,
4o you propose to refill the swivel chairs with
cheaper men who are your own henchmen?
A. There are too many high-salaried men
and women who are eating off the tax-payers.
Q. Will you kindly name a few high salaried
wen and women whose places you would fill,
and give us an idea of the prices you would pay?
A. Oh, I cannot go into those complications
here. But the first thing I will do when elected
will be to eliminate the sales tax, which is the
most abominable curse ever devised by the
devilish ingenuity of an office-holding oligar
chy.
Q. Well, supposing you were able to elimi
nate the sales tax by your complete domination
and mastery of the legislature, this would mean
lopping off about 10 million dollars of the
State's present revenue, would it not?
A. You are correct.
Qv Then, according to your program. I
notice you propose to largely increase the
salaries of the school teachers, to lengthen the
t schools to nine months, to lower the price of
automobile tags to $5, to pay old age pensions,
and do ether great and noble things, which
will cost at least 10 million dollars more. So
that with your negative program of cutting off
the sales tax and your positive program of giv
ing the people their new blessings, the State
would be confronted with a $20,000,000 hole in
thie necessary revenues. Will you please tell
the people how you propose to fill up this hole?
A. You evidently did not hear me in my
Winston-Salem address in which I explained
clearly that there is a vast invisible bulk of un
taxed wealth in the State, and this I propose to
tax. For instance, I will have the State con
stitution repealed so that we can tax incomes
as high as 10 p?r cent, in the upper brackets; f
will tax the dividends of the corporations, and
I will increase the franchise tax on the corpora-I
tfons, I will put a tax on merchants and a heavy!
tax on ch mn filling* stations, etc.
(AN EDITORIAL)
CROSS = EXAMINATION
Danbury, N. C., Thursday, April 23, 1936
Q. Well, doctor, I have noticed that the bulk
'of your supporters appear to be merchants
; whom you have led to believe the sales tax
j (which they of course pass on to the consumer)
.is a great evil, and they therefore have an ob
-1 session that you are some kind of a savior come
•to rescue them. How are you going to justify
your savior-qualities further to these merchants
when they begin to feel the pinch of your pro
posed privilege tax?
A. Oh, this merchant's tax will only be a
, moderate one, and this they will be glad to pay
, as a relief from the diabolical sales tax.
Q. Now, doctor, let us agree for the sake of
1: argument that the industries of the State, al
ready taxed to constitutional limits on their in
comes, would receive your higher embargoes
icomplacently; that the dividends of corpora-,
jtions, firms and individuals, which are already
I taxed, could take on your additional load of
'double taxation, and that all the other sources!
' of the bulk of invisible untaxed wealth which
'; you have enumerated in your program could be
tapped according to your specifications, how,
»:much revenue would you raise thereby toward
filling the 20-million dollar hole you had
created 7
A. It is all a matter of calculation and
figures. I reach my conclusions by infallible
methods. •
Q. Have you noticed that State tax commiss
ioner A. J. Maxwell has analyzed your program J
and makes public the statement that if you
could reach every source of untaxed wealth as
| ..outlined in your, program, that you "culd only
; produce 3 million dollars of taxes. Maxwell is
long experienced in the intricacies of taxation
■ and is considered one of the ablest authorities
on fiscal matters in the United States. }
A. Maxwell knows very little about taxation.,
'[He is ignorant of modern principles as taught !
,jin my philosophy. Besides, Maxwell is biased,
II being an occupier of a swivel chair at Raleigh. •
jHe knows if I get in, I will oust him from his
j berth.
Q. But, doctor, I see that this important
.question has been referred to a disinterest
,jed party in the person of Dr. Heer of the State i
' j University, that Heer checked Maxwell's'
; i figures and reported them substantially correct.
A. I stand by my calculations, and I
! j guarantee my deductions to be accurate.
■ j Q. Well, doctor, let me ask you to answer
j this question which is very vital to the tax-pay-'
;ers and citizens of the great State which you are:
I trying to obtain control of: Suppose that you
should be elected and that you were able to re
; j peal the sales tax and to carry out your program
! of reaching the great sources of untaxed wealth
i outlined in your program. Suppose after you
I had bled thesp sources, that the State would •
'then find itself confronted with the tragic situa- 1
, lion of a 17-million dollar deficit in its revenues.
, What would be your recourse then but to fall 1
vback with heavy ad valorem taxation on land
and real estate to save the State from bankrupt-!
|'cy. Would not your impractical theories then'
/be charged with the destruction of the farmers!
> whom you are trying to induce to place you in
the State's highest and most important position?,
A. Oh, my calculations cannot fail. Max-1
well and Heer have erred in their figures
through ignorance and bias toward me.
Q. But, doctor, even if these two eminent
tax authorities should be ten million dollars out!
of line, you would still have a shortage of morei
than 7 million dollars facing your administra
tion. Now answer, frankly, if land would not
be your only salvation, but the farmer's des-,
truction? Answer yes or no.
A. lam opposed to taxation of land. Ij
would not submit to it
| Q. Now, doctor, I believe you were a member
jof the late North Carolina legislature that
I passed the sales tax.
A. I was and fought the sales tax bitterly
while in Raleigh.
Q. Did you not, when the legislature finally
saw that it was a choice bet\ve( n the sales tax
and putting the tax back on land, if the schools
were to run on and the State's honor and credit
saved—did you not withdraw nearly all the wild
theories you are now offering which you were
offering then in the legislative".' And did
your plan not finally fizzle down about -i
million dollars of revenue?
A. You are quoting the Greensboro News,
and 1 deny it.
Q. You abandoned your Utopia in the legis
lature, why not abandon it now as a wild tissue
of impossible theories which would be sure to
get the State into serious trouble?
A. The people will back me in my program
and I will beat the other candidates who are in
favor of the sales tax.
• Q. But, you know, doctor that the other can
didates all three of them—are opposed to the
sales tax and have repeatedly said so, but rea
lize that it can only be eliminated gradually un
less we go back to heavy taxation on the farm
er's land and on the real estate.
A. I have told you I am opposed to land taxa -
tion.
Q. Doctor, are you a reader of the Union
Republican?
A. Oh, yes, and most other State papers.
■ Q. Is that where you get your information
that the Democratic party of North Carolina is
rotten, and incompetent and crooked?
I have not said that the machine is crook
ed.
Q. What is the Democratic machine*
A. It is the gang of office holders at
Raleigh.
Q. How is it you are so anxious to become *
member of that gang of crooks, indeed its
chief?
A. There will be a new set if I am elected.
Q. Of crooks?
A. I did not say so. My subordinates will be
honest men and capable.
Q- ou are very careful in your statements
to the people in the course of your campaign,
are you not?
A. Certainly.
! Q. Then why did you so grossly misrepresent
the dead Bowman Grey in your Winston-Salem
'speech, in insinuating that his property was
evading taxation?
A. I said that his name did not appear on the
: tax lists, and it does not. 1 was right.
: _ Q. But when it was proved that his estate
did appear, and was shown to be paying its just
share of taxes to Forsyth county and th» State
i of North Carolina, why did you not acknowledge
to the people that by inuendo you were try
i ing to create a false impression in the minds of
:- he people and to prejudice them against res
i pectable and honored citizens, in furtherance of
jyour methods to obtain an office?
A. The tax records are there for the neople
to see for themselves. I have no aprvy*y to
make.
j Q. And in posing as Pir G-lahad. ov u • man
without sin, you are willing for others to be
i condemned—Am I right?
A. I think you are stretch*'v
Q. You are basing your ti the
I discredit and the dishonor ov too , r iy y -u wane
to put you in, why do you and I'-i-m v. v. and
Cough lan and Town send ar-l V ra UT.'S rot
; start a new party which uvi' 1 , • to your
i impractical and impossible the*.
A. lam not a radical. Jam a ov. at J r:end
and supporter of President Roosevelt av i tno
New Deal.
Q. Do you feel like you deserve any credit*
for that?
Number 3,339