The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1879-08-21
VOL. VIII.
LET US BE WISE AND JUST AND
CAPABLE BEFORE WE ARE
TOO GENEROUS.

Before We go about anv other public
work or undertake any task Of public
beceficence, or subject the people of
Austin to any tax for schools, as pre-
poset by correspondent, who would
educate everybody, it would be wise
TO d-ffuse and strengthen the capacity
to pay taxes. When mans income
from the best city property, after sub
tracing repairs and insurance and the
State and county and city taxes, is less
than two per cent, it is hardly proper
to subject him to further burdens ur-
less these fresh exsctions augment in
stlntly his income and thus capacity to
pay. II citizen, after toiliDg twenty
or fifty years that his old age and wife
and children may not be beggaIed, have
gathered competency, it Is little in
ducement for others to toll if they see
him, having this modest share of The
worlds goods, taxed to penury. The
people should remember that rates o.
taxation, now proposed to be increased,
aad property values have 30 prop
er relations to cue another. Property
prices have come down to tue gold
standard while taxation is maintained
at rates fixed when the la; wss
flooded with deprecated paper. Not
content with maintaining the rate of
fifty cents per one hundred dollars
worth of realty, the Legislature ex-
| hausted human genius and the whisky
shops and dTummars ard occu oations
and all things living aud dead b, tween
heaven and earth in the effort to find
subjects of fierce, remorseless taxa
tion. I he whole sum of this taxation
is Dug out OF the ground. The ground
must pay it. Nothing else produces
aught, and it can bear nothing more
of public burdens unless it be made
more productive. Free schools in Aus
tin will give US no better schools than
we have today. The chances favor
the result that they will never be half
as productive of good, since they will
crush all competition, aud not because
they are better but cheaper. But this
point IS not now under discussion, and
we have only to say that until the en-
thusiastFc free school people have dune
something to enable merchants to sell
more goods and bankers to lave
greater sums on deposit and land
lords to enjoy greater incomes,
and until grocery and market men are
furnished with better and more GUS
toners, and until the country and viii
lagos and towns and exuberent DIS
tricts north of Austin have easy and
cheap access to. the city; until it is
seen that the whole system OF roads
converging at Galveston ard Houston
must make Austin their northern point
of conveyance, it would be unwise
and wrongful to impose heavier bur-
dens than those now endured upon
taxpayers. The effect of the proposed
educational revolution will be to en-
able many people to draw from the
city government more money than they
pay for the maintenance of this gov
ernment. The effect will be to vote
one mans money into another mans
pocket, and while this may be toler-
ated for the sake OF the great good al
legged to be accomplished, 1t cannot he
approved or endured when property
itself pays nothing snd is worth
nothing save to taxgaiherers. The
first practical measure of Austin, unless
its people be its enemies, desirlpg its
utter destruction, consists in obviating
the effects of the proposed extension Of
the International to San Antonio. This
will be tfectsally done when each Of
those proposing to derive advantages
from an universal ten months flee
school helps those now who would
help them when schoolmasters are to
be paid. In other words, let every
body invest first in :he Northwestern
Narrow Gauge and then taxpayers will
be able and willing to maintain the
system commended so tenderly by the
venerable manager of the Peabody
echOol fund SIS