Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1859-02-10

Excessive Taxation.

For the Tribune Telegraph.
Excessive Taxation.
Editors KenOsha Tribune s. Telegraph:
Gentlemen,-In your issue of January
9th, perceive the following:
We learn from reliable sources that the relief
sought to be obtained from the Legislature, by
our County Board of Supervisors, in respect to
the un Just equalization of taxes, does not prom
ise favorably. The Legislature does not ap
pear inclined to review the action of the State
Board of Equalization.
Although your article above quoted was I'M
dUubtedly well intended, we regret that you
should not, instead, have gone into due criti-
cism of the indisposition of the Legislature to
"review the action of the State Board of Equal
ization" therein set forth.
The idea that counties must submit to the
heaviest inequalities, and the most unjust bur
thens from the action of the State Board,
where there is power to redress, ought not one
moment to be tolerated.
That the Legislature are competent to review
the action of the State Board, there can be NO
doubt. That they should do SO. where Unequal
ity is palpabe and excessive, there can be no
more doubt than there is that principal in a
private transaction should at once correct the
errors and misjudgment of his clerk, or joint
company remedy An I'M ustce to an individual
member through the errors of the agent trans
acting the business of the common concern.
1 know not, Messrs. Editors, exactly how it
stands with your County; but if the undue
apportionment by the State Board is as plain
IL
County Board have demonstrated that appor.
tionment to be in our county we see not how
any member of the Legislature, acting on the
principle of justice, can hesitate on the ques-
ton of relief.
We are confident that no member from ether
more favored countries would hesitate mo-
ment as to what was due in the case, if the un-
just apportionment was upon his own county
Our county, on the abstract before the State
Board of Equalizers, stands in it's aggregate
assessed valuation 81 ,659,9s8 less than Wal
worth County, and reckoning its farm lands at
the same price as Walworth, would stand
81, 1872, 458 less than Walworth county. But
by the incomprehensible action of the State
Board, our equalized valuation is 3d. $4,000 in
excess of the equalized valuation of Walworth
County, making our State tax between FIVE and
six thousand dollars more than that of Wal
worth County, when it is admitted on all hands,
by citizens Of both counties, that our county is
not worth more than two-thirds as much as
Walworth. Our spportionment of State tax is
full $4,000 more than its just amount.
Messrs. Editors, do you think that, if this
burthen was unjuStly cast upon any other
county in the State, the members of the Legis-
ature from such county would be ''disinclined
to review the action of the State Board I" Why
not bring the case home to themselves, and do
as they would wish to be done byY What right
has the Stats-the inequality being shown-to
hold us to its payment! None. None but the
right of mere force, and to hold us by that alone
is robbery.
If the Legislature will not redress, can we
not 60 to the courts Our Supreme Court has
shown no hesitation about reviewing" the ac-
ton of State Boards; and if tho Legislature
cannot remedy, instead of advising your Board
to "make provisions without delay" your pso-
pie should prompt them, we think, to enquire
Is,
your wrongs are as grievous as ours.
You speak, Messrs. Editors, of interests at
stake that cannot well be hazarded," &c. You
refer, we presume, to the Withholding Of the
school monies, under law of last winter, that
no county shall draw money from the State
Treasury while such county is indebted to the
State for the State tax: Is it not plain that
that law is Enthusiastically unconstitutional
that the State has no right whatever to with
hold the school monies from those towns which
have complied with the school law founded on
the constitutional provisions? The counties
are the mere agencies through which the menies
are transmitted to the towns.
The law referred to, if it was intended to ap-
ply to school monies, is disgrace to the Legis-
lature that enacted it, and should at once be
swept from the statutes. Under it, the dein-
qusncy of single town in the county in pay
ing over its State tax to the County Treasurer,
would deprive whole county of its school
money. Such would have been our case last
year, when our county was $500 in arrears to
the Stats from delinquency, as is understood,
Of the city of Racine. Under this law, the
whole county would have been deprived of its
school money thereby. The State has no right
to use the school money in offset to such coun-
ty indebtedness. How foolish, then, to tamper
with the rights of the towns and the interests of
schools, to coerce the county
RACINE COUNTY.
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