The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-01-25
4 GOOD AND BRAINY MAN.

| dLIu ~StluSS1IIS ~ I'm IAN
been the moth and permitted to fly around
the bright lights-not to burn his wings,
but for his own enjoyment, to meet some
men. And in those years-from coast to
| coast and from gulf to straits-he says
to-day that never has he enjoyed the
friendship nor gained the good will Of a
man whom he would rather know, than
Hon. J. STERLING Morton, Of Arbor
Lodge, Nebraska.
Mr.. MORTON is intellectually superior
to most men we meet-his social life has
been one Of purity and moral grandeur,
and when a young man tries to do right,
J. STERLING MORTON will do all in the
world for him.
Mr.. MORTON deals in economic ques-
tions, and he hits the bulls eye when he
writes. The letter below on taxation and
the presumption of municipalities and
states in bequeathing a debt instead Of a
legacy, abounds in logic and in common
sense which must attract attention:
"Individuals make wills and die. So
far in civilization man makes bestOwals
of his gains and accumulations by his
last testament. The law and its officers
distribute property in accord with the
direction Of the decedent. But it has not
been provided by law, or otherwise, that
q dying debter can bequeath debts with
out property to his surviving friends and
kindred and have payment for those
debts enforced upon them. But however
absurdly true this may strike one when
asserted as to individuals, it is not true
at all to say that communities do not
make wills and bequeath debts to their
posterity, and provide also for the most
rigorous means Of collecting them, even
by confiscation through the power to
levy taxes.
"Six months never come and 60, and
have never come and gone in the state of
Nebraska, without some community,
either at special or general election,
making a new bequest to pOsterity of
more debts to be paid. Your W city
of Omaha recently very generously will
led somewhere between 50, 0 900 and
$4,000 600, if my memory serve me cor
rectly, Of Indebtedness in thirty-year
bonds to be paid by those who thirty
years hence are the tOilers in what then
will be a great cosmopolitan center.
Modern civilization provides fixed
| charges for those who are stockholders
in its organization; principal among
those fixed charges are, among provident
persons, life insurance, fire insurance
and maintainance of sanitary surround
ings. Perhaps the latter phrase may in
clude water rates, sewage taxes, police
and health departments and paving, in
great cities. Now the question which
presents itself is how much farther can
the fixed charges Of citizenship be in
creased by varied taxes, and still leave
enough of its earnings for maintenance
and provision for old age? In other
words, have we very far to go with the
taxing power to reach the limit of the
annual earnings of the average Ameri-
can citizen: Leaving legacies of debt at
every special and general election, when
opportunity offers, to the city, the county
and the state of 1900, and fer that mat
ter, down TO 1880, are we not constantly
making citizenship into two classes,
those who own debt and eat debts, and
those who owe debts and must work to
pay debts:
1T is vitality important that no tax
shall be levied except for a public pur-
pose. Whenever a scheme is presented
which provides for further taxation of
the people it should be economically an
alyzed. All the motives of the project or
enterprise should be held up in the light,
where the public can see plainly and
clearly all their colOrings, either selfish
or philanthropic. The last legislature of
this state presented a singularly marked
case of economic anthithesis to view in
making appropriations OF the public
moneys. One day it appropriated $500, 600
as a relief fund to prevent starvation
among the people in the western counties
OF Nebraska, to whom the government
had given their homestead.. The legis-
lature acknowledged by this eelymosy-
nary distribution Of the public funds that
in the unsettled, remote counties it was
possible forpeople, some seasons, to starve
10 death on farms, even though they had
been a free gift. 1t also cast a slight sus-
: picion upon the permanent agricultural