THE ROOSEVELT POLICY 
Speech 1
THE TAXATION OF CORPORATIONS

FROM A GUBERNATORIAL MESSAGE TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK MARCH 27, 1899

THERE is evident injustice in the light taxation of corporations.  I have not the slightest sympathy with the outcry against corporations as such, or against prosperous men of business.  Most of the great material works by which the entire country benefits have been due to the action of individual men, or of aggregates of men, who made money for themselves by doing that which was in the interest of the people as a whole.  From an armor plant to a street railway no work which is really beneficial to the public can be performed to the best advantage of the public save by men of such business capacity that they will not do the work unless they themselves receive ample reward for doing it.  The effort to deprive them of an ample reward merely means that they will turn their energies in some other direction; and the public will be by just so much the loser.  Moreover, to tax corporations or men of means in such a way as to drive them out of the State works great damage to the State.  To drive out of a community the men of means and the men who take the lead in business enterprises would probably entail, as one of its first results, the starvation of a considerable portion of the remainder of the population.

But while I freely admit all this, it yet remains true that a corporation which derives its powers from the State should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys.  This should be especially true for the franchises bestowed upon gas companies, street railroads and the like.  The question of the municipal ownership of these franchises can not be raised with propriety until the governments of all municipalities show greater wisdom and virtue than has been recently shown, for instance, in New York City; and the question of laying and assessing the tax for franchises of every kind throughout the State should in my opinion be determined by the State itself.  I need not point out to you that in foreign communities a very large percentage of the taxes comes from corporations which use the public domain for pipes, tracks, and the like.