Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-10-16

continued until the business of the country is
loaded down with debts a financial crisis is in
eyitable, and only waits for " the last straw"
If this view is correct, the way to meet the dan
gerous tendencies of flush times is plain. Let
two of Doctor FTanklin's hOmely proverbs be
strictly observed by individuals and by commu-
mites. One is = Never live beyond your
means y and the other is like unto it, namely
| 1t is easy to see that, if these old maxims of
of the philosopy of common sense could have
general practical acceptance, the period of good
times would be greatly prolonged, and the ca
lamities of hard times would be vastly diminish
ed. There can be no great financial crisis with
out large Indebtedness, and the distress which
1t brings Is in proportion to the extent of the ex
trayagance, speculation, and consequent indeDt-
edness which have caused it. Those who are
out of debt suffer least. Where the debts are
heaviest the calamity is heaviest. But it is of
PUBLIC INDEBTEDNESS,
and especially of the debts of towns and cities.
wish to say few words.
The practice of creating public debts, as it pre-
walls IN this country, especially in municipal gov
| eminent, has long attracted very serious atten-
| ton. 1t is great and growing evil States
| untarnished, are threatened with reputation.
! Many towns and cities have reached a point
where they must soon face the same peril. |
| do not now wish to discuss the mschiefs of
reputation. My purpose is merely to make
few suggestions as to the best way to avoid
! reputation. But, in passing, let me observe:
| Experience in this country has shown that no
State or community can, under any circum-
stsnces. gain by reputation. The regulators
! themselves cannot afford it. The community
| that deliberately refuses to provide for its
! honest debts loses its good name and shuts the
door to all hope of future prosperity. It de-
moralzes and degrades all classes of its citizens
Capital and labor and good people will not go to
such communities but will surely leave them.
If thought my words could influence any of
my countrymen who are so unfortunate as to
be compelled to consider this question, would
say, let no good citizen be induced by any pros
pect OF advantage to himself or to his party to
take single step towards reputation. Let
him set his face like flint against the first dawn
ing of an attempt to enter upon that downward
pathway. 1t has been well said that the most
expensive way for community to get rid OF
Its honest debts is reputation.
| Returning to the subject of municipal debts,
it is not alone those that live in towns and
cities who are interested IN their wise and
| economical government. All who trade with
their citizens, all who buy of them, all who sell
| to them-in a word the whole of the laboring
and producing classes-must bear q share of
their burdens. The taxes collected in the city
find their way into the price-lists of what is
bought of and sold to the farmers and laborers
in the country. On the
! QUESTIONS OF DEBT AND TAXATION
the jewellers of the city and those who habltu-
ally deal with them form together one COM
munity and have common interest.
The usual argument in favor of creating
city debt is, that the proposed building or i'm
| provement is not for this generation alone but
is also for the benefit of posterity, and, there
fore, posterity ought to help to pay for it. This
reasoning will not bear examination. Each
generation has its own demands upon its purse.
1t should not be called on to pay for the cast-of
garments of its ancestors
The appliances and structures which orr
ancestors provided for water, light, streets,
parks, cemeteries, for putting out fires, for
police, for locOmotion, for education, and for
the thousand other necessities of city life, would
not be well suited to the tastes, habits and
wants of our day. This generation must have
| steam fire-engines and WaterWorks, and its
| tax payers do not want TO be called upon to
pay for the cisterns, the fre-buckets and the
pumps of thirty years ago.
Municipal borrowing is the parent of waste,
profligacy and corruption. Money that comes
| easily goes easily. In this career of reckless
| extravaganza, cities build and buy what they
do not need, and pay for what they get far
more than it is worth. / adopt the words of
the valuable report of the Pennsylvania Com
mission appointed to devise plan for the gov
eminent of cities To sum it up, it too often
happens that "the men who authorize the con-
tracts are substantially the men who profess to
perform them. The men who fix the prices are
substantially the men who receive the pay for
performing the labor, and the men who issue
the bonds are the men who receive the money"
The magnitude and growth of this evil are
shown by statistics with which the public is
familiar. l do not choose to detain you by re-
peating them in detail.
A few weeks ago The New York Tribune
called attention to an excellent article on this
subject in The Princeton Review, by Mr.. Robert
p. Porter, in which it is shown that local debts
Z,
ton to the increase of property and population.
Mr.. Porter shows that IN one hundred and
thirty cities the debt increased from S22l 3l2 OO9
in 1866 to S644, 37S, 663 in 1876. The percentage
of increase is about 200 per cent. in ten years.
while the property of these cities increased
but Is per cent, and their population only 80
per cent. The total local indebtedness of all of
the States, emitting the Territories is estimated
in the article referred to, at the close of 1878
was 81, 051, LOG, 112. In many instances 1t is
shown that the annual amount of interest paid
by cities on their debts is almost equal to the
| total annual expenses for carrying on their
| local governments. The volume of the local
Indebtedness of the country already exceeds
ne-half the great war debt of the nation, and
| the interest upon them, from the high rates
usually paid, will soon equal the total interest
upon the National debt.
THE URGENT QUESTION
that is now pressing for consideration is, how
to deal with these large and increasing local
debts. The best answer it seems to me is
simple, ready at hand, and sufficient. Do not
! have any local debts. Let it be embodied in
the constitutions and laws of every State, that
J local authorities shall create no debts; that
| they shall make no appropriations of money
until it is collected and ON hand; that all APP
preparations shall be for specific objects, and
that as to existing debts suitable provision shall
! be made for their extinguishment.
To pay off the old debts-to create no new
debts-win be difficult and embarrassing. Valu-
able reforms always are difficult, and thorough
work often is embarrassing. If we would be
| rid of the peril of approaching bankruptcy and
reputation which now threaten many towns
and cities, there must be halt to this danger
Gus downward march. If the remedies have
suggested are too radical, let others be pro-
posed and acted on, and that promptly.
The policy of preventing the creation of local
debts by positive Constitutional prohibition is
| fully sustained by the experience of the States
with respect to State debts. Constitutions in
many of the old. and in all of the new States,
have been adopted within the last thirty or
forty years, and almost all of them contain pro-
visions denying to State legislatures the author
ity to create debts except in of war, insur-
rection, or other extraordinary emergency.
Under the operation of these prOhibitory pro-
visions, the debts existing at the time of their
adoption have been greatly reduced, and the
only States now embarrassed by debt are those
whose Constitutions do not contain this wise
prohibition.
The general policy of the National Govern