Supreme Court Gibberish

I'm watching a show on PBS about the Supreme Court. They're talking about Justice Field, and his opposition to the Income Tax. To paraphrase one of the commentators, "Field saw the Income Tax as the thin wedge of communism, and that if it was instituted the country the rsult would be the poor inventing laws to take money from the rich and give it to themselves." She said it in a tone that suggested how crazy this mean old coot was.

Isn't this exactly what happened?