Law Exempting Judge's Salary From Income Tax Defies Common Sense, Says J.D. Bullock, Feb. 15, 1922

Common Sense and the Law

By James Dempsey Bullock

What this world needs is more common sense and less law.

If it is law to exempt the incomes of judges who receive a salary of %5,000 per year, then it is poor common sense to tax the salary of poor working girls who receive $25 per week. We are glad that while Judge Devin decides that the law exempted the incomes of judges, yet his good common sense decided that the judges were morally subject to the tax and he had already filed his own, as they all should do.

It is rather straining at gnats to decide that the paying of taxes lessens the salary. If that idea holds good then why not during the period of high prices of the war a judge should not have hand everything he bought furnished him at the same prices they were when he went into office, for instance if shoes were $4 a pair when he was elected and afterwards the price advanced to $10, you must not reduce his salary $6, you must sell him shoes for $4—Consistency, thou are a jewel.

From The Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., Feb. 15, 1922.