The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-03-27
TO the Citizens and Tax-PaSers Of
the City of Westminster.

Some seven or eight months ago we pub
lished a statement showing the financial con-
dition of the City, and the inability of paying
for gas and the other necessary expenses OF
the Corporation, with the amount of taxes
collected at the present rate of ten cents on
the one hundred dollars; and we then invited
the citizens and tax payers to give expression
to their views by a town meeting or otherwise,
as to the ACCESSIBILITY of increasing the rate of
taxation.
The citizens and tax payers have not as yet
held public meeting for that purpose, and
the only public response were several anony-
nous communications to our town newspa-
ners. none of which seemed to touch the point
in question or solve the difficulty; whilst one
of said communications was so replete with
vituperation, rancor and abuse that no one
cared to know who the author was. The same
communication by insinuation and innuendo
doubted the truthfulness of our statement,
and intimated that there was some crooked
ness in the management of City affairs.
We took no notice, however of this, as the
proceedings of the Council are not pirate
but public, and the Treasurer's books as well
as the minutes of the Councils proceedings
are always open to the inspection of any clti
zen who desires to examine them; and pro-
ner examination Of them will show the cor
rectness of our statement, our honesty of pur-
pose and our fidelity to the official oath we
have respectively taken.
In accordance with the request and solicit
tations of a large number of the citizens, inclu-
ding many of the heaviest taxpayers, and the
well.known necessities of the City moving US
thereto, we directed two Bills to be prepared
and presented to the Legislature, one to legal
ize and fund the Corporation Indebtedness at
a lower rate of interest than is now paid, and
the other to extend the limit of taxation to
twenty-five cents on the one hundred dollars.
A petition praying for the passage of said
TWO bills together with copies of the same, Tas
circulated through the City for week or
more, and was signed by a large number of
the largest tax payers, and then the said two
Bills together with said petition were forward
ed to the General Assembly.
Since then the City has been flooded with
anonymous circulars denouncing both of the
above bills as an effort to increase the taxes;
and by specious and false reasoning, mistate-
ments of facts and mere assertions induced
quite a number of citizens into the erroneous
belief that the passage of said two bills would
raise the rate of taxation to thirty-fve cents
on the one hundred dollars, and put bonded
debt upon the town of twenty eight thousand
dollars. This is erroneous and misleading.
The same circular commends the present City
Council to the everlasting thanks of the citi-
zens for refusing to carry out the provisions
of the s.paving- bill of 1884 and yet in the
same breath consigns them to eternal intamy
for shutting off the gas.
Some of our citizens who have not even
taken the trouble to examine the Treasurer
books or the minutes of the proceedings OF
the Council, are content to assert as facts,
things which exist only in their own fertile
imaginations; and others are credulous enough
to believe them without any further investiga-