The Placer herald., 1873-07-26
ADDRESS
TO THE
VOTERS OF PLACER COUNTY,
CALL FOR A CONVENTION
OPPOSED TO MONOPOLIES. RINGS, COR.
RUPTION AND EXTRAVAGANCE N OF.
FICE.

We the undersigned members of the Demo
cratic and Liberal Republican County Commit
tees, respectfully submit, that the time has fully
come when, if we would be free and enjoy our
sacred rights and the fruits of our own toll,
under laws made by and for us, and executed
by our own chosen officials, we must organize
and work as one man, and demand and en-
force these rights by every lawful means Sc
cured to u.s. The long and patient suffering of
the people of this county under ring and mo-
nopoly exactions, marks page in local history
that can scarce find an equal in free government.
Our taxation, State, county, township, and dis
trict, though double what we should pay, is
buta 1.-THE of the burthens,we bear from the
monster monopoly that bleeds us all from every
source of our labor for itself, for its lesser mo
nopoly adjuncts, for its newspapers, its lobby
ists and its evil swarms Of stipendiaries and
dead-heads all over the county and country
These are the constant drops that wear the
solid rock away; these are the outgivings that
increase each laborers tolls; that deplete each
merchants, miners, farmers and mechanics
receipts; these are the eXactions that you must
pay on all you buy and on all you sell, and
these they demand with the arrogance of Euro
pean lords. These exactions draw from your
earnings tens of thousands of dollars annual
llv, and leave you as poor at the end of each
year as when you began it, 1t is the disease
that wastes the fruits of your toll, the
fever wastes your strength and flesh. You see
and feel the effects but you can scarcely tell
where your earnings are gone And while this
monster and its malarious adjuncts putting
your substance in their pockets, they owning
more than one-half the value of all the property
in the county, by fair valuation, refuse to pay
their just portion of the taxes, while they prac-
tically own the officers YOU are compelled to
SuppOrt and mako tbapo do fhpir bi11ipU
They corrupt or cause your officials to cover
and obey them. Point to the official either
county or Legislative that the Court House Ring
has furnished you for the last six years. that has
had the manhood, courage or disposition to
stand up and openly fight your battles against
this great corrupting depicting incubus. A few
went into office boasting what they would do,
but they all came out covering cravens, working
for self and the monopoly alone, and will now,
undoubtedly, receive the hearty support of the
railroad and its tunkies for Office again. There
was given and loaned to the railroad company
by the General Government, State, and
Placer County Sl3. 600, to construct and
stock ninety-two miles Of railroad in this coun-
ty, and it claims it took the whole sum, and
now when its net receipts are about $4,000 a
mile, or 81, 100000 for the ninety-two miles per
year, it impudently refuses to pay taxes on even
the net income of the road when ii should pay
on the whole 1913, 100000. Taxed as you are it
would have paid into the County Treasury OF
Placer $50, 900 last year, and relieved you of
more than two-thirds of your taxes. The peo-
pie gave it $l41 900 a mile to construct and
equip the road, and now it refuses to pay taxes
on one twentieth Of this amount.
Out of their own mouths we will now prove
all this: Early in May, 1868, when the company
was asking the taxpayers OF Placer to vote
them S250,000 in gold bonds, with 100000 in
terest on them for twenty years, making $3.50,
900, it issued an address and scattered it broad
cast ali over the county We here insert the