Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-13
TIE RAILROAD TAX SUITS.

county from selling the Central Pacific
Railroad property for taxes, on the ground
that the remedy sought is not the proper
one. The tax suits of which this is one
have been made the theme of much decla-
nation against the railroad company,
which has been roundly accused of
desire to escape taxation. In some of the
counties where payment OF the railroad
taxes has been resisted, the dearth of county
revenue has go endangered the continuance
of proper government as to add greatly
to the popular feeling On the subject. We
admit that this is by no means unnatural.
Whenever wealthy corporation is
concerned there is disposition to regard
it with unfriendliness, and TO suspect it of
a desire to evade the fulfllment of its du-
ties. But though it may be hard to re-
alize that corporation is entitled to pre-.
cisely the same fairness of treatment in
these matters as individuals enjoy, the
fact is so, and unless it be admitted it will
never be possible to avoid misunderstand-
iDgs. In all these tax cases it is claimed,
on behalf of the corporation, that it has
been unjustly assessed, and it must be said
plainly that the proof of this assertion
appears to have been made in nearly every
case. The assessments seem to have been
based on an extra-legal hypothesis that
because the company was rich it ought to
pay higher taxes in proportion than other
taxpayers. The State Board of Equal.
ization has proceeded on this assumption,
and the result has been the addition of
perhaps 40 per cent more taxes than the
facts justified, to the assessment roll.
The popular theory seems to be that the
railroad ought to have paid whatever was
demanded, and that because it has not
done this, but has protested and resisted,
therefore it is highly culpable. In some
counties there has actually been a dispo-
sition to deprive it of the ordinary pro-
lection of the law because it declined to
pay what it held to be exorbitant taxes ];
and almost everywhere it has been de-
nounced as though there could be no
Equities on its side. But it must be
realized that if either an individual or
corporation yields without protest or oppo-
sition to a method of taxation which he or
it believes to be in the nature of confis-
cation, the result will be to sanction and
perpetuate the wrong, and even to facili-
tate its further expansion. The real
question at issue is whether or not the
railroad has been assessed too high. If
proof is advanced in support of that posi-
ton the justification of the company's
resistance must be regarded as complete
for it certainly cannot be expected or re-
CURED by justice-loving people that any
of their members, whether joined as cor
porators, or individually, shall be singled
out for discriminating and excessive tax.
alton.
Ard it is necessary to lay stress upon the
fact that the alleged failure of the railroad
to pay its taxes is attributable, in the case
above stated, not to its own indisposition
to meet any just demands, but TO the in
equity of the proceedings by which it has
been sought to make it bear far more than
its Just share of the common burden. Had
the assessments been reasonable; had
they been made upon the same
basis as those of individuals had they fol.
lowed the provisions of the Constitution
faithfully there would not have been any
resistance to them, and consequently the
county treasures could long since have
been replenished. And though the people
of any county are apt to regard their own
interests alone in matter of this kind, it
must be remembered that the interests of
the railroad are involved in every county
in which they are taxed, and that the
aggregate of their State and county tax
alton is very considerable amount-so
considerable that they are bound, by every
business principle, to keep it as low as pos
sible.
Nor does the company appear to have any
remedy in the Courts, save by such recourse
as may stave off action. The existence
of jast ground for remonstrance and COM
plant on the part of the railroad has been
recognized by the Courts but at the same
time these tribunals have declared that
the methods adopted to prevent the con.
summation of the wrong were improper or
inadequate. Under the circumstances the
company is hard bested; but even if it
should be compelled eventually to pay the
excessive taxes demanded of it, it is clear
that the question viii not be permanently
settled, because nothing is ever settled un-
til it is settled right. The establishment,
no matter under what color of law, of the
power OF the State or the counties to dis
criminate unjustly against corporations in
matters of taxation, would really be quite
as injurious to the people as to the cor
porations. That is the only tolerable
method of taxation which falls so equally
upon all that none can find in it
any Justification for resistance. When
greed or recklessness or prejudice
brings about unfair assessments, there must
be opposition, and it is scarcely possible
that in such cases the superior power of the
people can be so summarily exerted as to
prevent great waste and loss through the
Withholding of funds which otherwise
would have been made available at once.
TIE moral of these tax suits, in short, is,
that for the maintenance of the most salts
factory relations between the State and its
component parts, exact and even. handed
justice is indispensable; and that whenever
this requirement is ignored or disregarded,
the surface advantages of such course are
sure to be much more than counterbalanced
by the friction which injustice always sets
up. Those who seek justice must do JUS
tice and those who countenance wrong
I