The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-07-05

|
gestive figures showing the sout-put o
freight. We select cattle because it give
the advantage to the western counties owe
any other freight product:
GULF SYSTEM.
Johnson .........S 2 30
go
20 10
Bourbon 2I0 =
CRAWFORD ......--.......--...--....... lI2b5
Cherokee Isl.
Total Value.............- l,zooiH
SANTA FE EXTENSION.
Lame - z
80
nus. 1oni
TCotG
Total $259,8l
These fgures are from the report of aud
itor of $ e f r 81. Here is a showing
| on a single item OF one hundred to twenty
in favor of the Gulf system. Were the
comparison pursued to other freight pro
ducts the balance in favor of the latter
would be still greater. Yet the actual cost
of building these two lines is but trifing
per mile. Is it right that the Great Bend
! extension with hardly business sufficient
| to pay train expenses should be assessed
upon the same basis of cost as the Gull
system? The board thinks not. 1t must
be apparent to all that the third factor
must be considered. How much of this
business goes to the Gulf line and how
much to its competing lines? How much
| of the freight along the Great Bend exten
sion goes to the Santa Fe and how much to
the Missouri Pacific.
Then comes the fourth factor-"The le-
| gitimate cost of operating the roads" The
| board is very decidedly of the opinion that
| interest upon over issues of bonds and div
| idap1a 1,uon yvatarad stools hon III mt ha
| taken into account in estimating the cost
of the daily operating of the roads, and
| that the only item to be considered in this
| connection are necessary expenses for Ia
! bor fuel, repairs, taxes and three per cent
! interest on the actual value of the road and
equipment. Figured upon this basis, with
| the lighteSt possible expenses in train SER
vice, there are railways operated in Kan
saS whose gross earnings in 1888, 1889 and
1890 were barely sufficient TO pay their
taxes, without paying either operating ex-
penses or repairs.
The fifth factor is the terminal facilities
The board has given this subject careful |
attention and has visited the terminals of
the various lines at st. Joseph, Leaven-
worth, Kansas City, Denver, Colorado
Springs and Pueblo.
Irr this age when fast trains carry ex-
press and mail sixty miles an hour; when
fast stock trains make 600 miles in twenty
four hours the advantage of through lines
with ample terminal facilities must be an.
parent to every citizen who has given the
subject any serious thought The Kansas
Central traversing the line from Leaven-
worth to Miltonville, in Cloud county,
cannot be compared to the Kansas Pacific
with one terminal at Kansas City and an
other at Denver. At the one point it
strikes the entrepot for the bulk of the
trade in the Missouri valley. At the other
h re oil Of ha
Rocky Mountain range where roads di-
verge to the wooded hills of Oregon and
Washington, to the scenic routes of Col
orado Wyoming and Utah and on to the
Pacific slope. To say that the Central
Branch with a western terminus on the
high prairie at Lenora, in Norton county,
enjoys the advantages of that other divis-
ion of the Missouri Pacific with terminals
at Kansas City and Omaha, would be alb
surd. So the Rock Island division from
Herington to Liberal cannot be compared
with its line from st. Joseph to Colorado
Springs and Denver. No man in his senses
Will say that the Great Bend or Strong
City extensions of the Santa Fe are more
than mere ciphers with its great trunk
line from Chicago to Mexico and Cali
foruia.
Given road-beds and rolling stock of
equal cost to rival lines the fact cannot be
concealed that terminal facilities in great
trade centres for one line and none of these
advantages for its rival, and the one road.
as an investment, is worth twenty times
the other, though both cost exactly alike
in the beginning
This brings us to the last factor-"What
Is the actual cost of the road today" In
the valuations placed upon the different
lines in Kansas will be found the answer.
Now, when, with single exception,
every railway system in Kansas is upon
he nf hQ n = MIN rn- hAn ol tn-
property in the state as a whole is dimip-
ished in its assessed valuation, the board
is deeply impressed with its responsibility
IN making assessments upon property To-
Gated in one hundred counties, and whose
crippled financial condition is part and
parcel OF the ugly legacy bequeathed to US
by successive years OF partial crop failures,
unprecedented depreciation of values and
distress. To listen to the sense
less and often vicious clamor, which de
mands that corporations should be taxed
out OF existence simply because they are
corporations, would be not only cowardly |
and grossly wrong of itself, but it would, |
in the end, work serious injury to the com !
mOnwealth.
The board respectfully asks that the |
basis of taxation of all property in Kansas |
shall be its actual value, to the end that /
every incentive shall be given TO honestly /
acquire the blessings and equally snare /
tAc DutO6uS VI bOe CoCli0 0ODWeAIJQ
IN view OF the conclusions stated in the |
foregoing, attention is called to the reports 1
OF the auditor of state for the years 1889
and 1890, inclusive. showing decrease IN /
the assessed valuation of improved and un- I
improved towa lots OF per cent in "a /
single year The following table will be /
found instructive as showing the tendency
to lower values of personal property by i
local assessors. The table shows average /
assessed value OF horses and cattle through /
out the state from 1885 TO 1890, inclusive:
Years. Horses Cattle /
Observation-Disclosures S3074 $40 73 /
Observation-Disclosures. 315l $50
So 900 /
lSSS. Observation-Disclosures. 2623 10 +
Observation-Disclosures 23Q0 8 p 4
1880 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. - IS 62I
This shows a decrease o. about p per
cent in the rate of assessment on horses
since lSS5 Il shows decrease Of nearly
30 per cent IN the rate OF assessment on +
horned cattle since 1885.
The auditors reports show that the
aSSrSSel valuation OF wagons in ISS5 WAS