The tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1890-1890, 1890-03-15
GREAT FALLS B
SATURDAY, MARCH Is. 1880.
SEMI-WEEKLY
THE CA7'TLE TAX.

Our Board of Trade should meet a
ouce and denounce Congressman Swee
ney's bill to tax cattle, horses and sheer
ranging on the public domain, one dollal
per head. This Iowa republican con
gresham is so crazed by projections
theories that he wants to protect the MD
die western stock-raisers from those o.
Montana and Idako. His notions of pro
lection are so confused and exaggerated
that he would break the compact which
the states made when they entered the
union, when they established free trade
among themselves, but gave congress
power to levy duties for the encourage
ment of home industries. Just as the
courts are declaring invalid those laws
designed to exclude Chicago dressed
meat from the st. Paul and other mark
cts, Jos. Sweeney demands that Montana
shall pay tribute to states which have
here an open market for their produce
or manufactures?
This INDUSTRIOUS tax would take about
$1,5OO,OOO from Montana alone. Last
year we had 1,ls0,003 sheep, 54S,332 cat
tie and $4,000 horses. All these do not
range on the public domain, but tax col
%lectors, stimulated by the hope of per-
sonal gain, would extract from our pee
pie very nearly the sun named. This
levy would ruin the stock business, which
is only now recovering from the heavy
losses it endured in the disastrous winter
of 1869.
The unfairness of the proposed tax is
astounding. Sweeney would make the
sheep, worth from $3.50 to "a, pay as
much as the steer worth $35 or the horse
worth $40. The cate that roam on poor,
worn out ranges would pay as much as
those which Craze ON the virgin soil of
the Bear Paw and Milk river regions.
The horse which feeds on the home
range one day and On the public domain
the next would pay as much as the horse
that lives all the time on government
land. The mule or cayuse would pay as
much as the thoroughbred and scabby
sheep the same rate rs the flock that is
in good condition.
But apart from its unfairness the pro.
posal is unwarranted by revenue needs.
In the fiscal year of 1887 the surplus was
$l03,4 All 600: in 1888, $111.3S1,000; in
1889, $751;, 701. 900. With a surplus so
enormous why should this government
take from the pioneer his hard earned
savings? Why should it cripple the en-
ergies of those who are increasing the
public wealth by turning waste lands to
account? Why should it increase the
cost Of meat and wool to the in
order that more money might be placed
in vaults that are already overflow
ing?
The wNole scheme is beset with injus-
tice and inconsistency. In Canada the
government rents grazing lands and thus
gives the stock owners a fair equivalent
for his money. But under our land sys.
TEN which is designed primarily to en-
courage settlement, the public domain is
open to the land prospector or squatter as
well as to the stock owner. The govern
ment cannot ensure that the acres which
are unoccupied this month may not be
full of hardy settlers the next. The stock
man who has paid $1,000 tax for keeping
1000 sheep may find any day his range
gone. If then he sells his sheep will the
government refund the tax? We guess
not. Cranks of the Sweeney type who
are devislng means to plumber the peo-
pie are also producing schemes to squan-
der their hard earnings.