The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1892-01-07
FoLLY's 4NsWER.

We admire the Salem Journal as a
good honest paper but it can sometimes
be as silly as any OF its contemporaries.
In an article in its issue of January 9Th,
entitled 'The attacks of folly" it speaks
disparingly of one paper that ''sqeuals''
because mortgages have been put up to
face value by the state board of equaliza-
ton while sheep are fixed by the same
board at 81 go a head, the cash value of
the commonest sheep being double that
amount and mutton sheep worth $4.00
and over. This ''squeali the Journal is
pleased to call cheap demagogy and then
it proceeds to answer it by quotation
from the Albany EemOcrdt, the gist of
which is that the cash value OF thing
is-not the amount it will bring at a
voluntary sale but the amount man
can borrow on it. This is new defini-
ton of cash value unknown both to law
and common sense. Thus the Democrat
illustrates and the Journal approves the
illustration OF the meaning of cash value
by supposing the case of farmer who has
100 head OF mutton sheep worth S.
head who cannot borrow more than $lOO
on his sheep because they ''might die or
the cayotes catch them" Or again tie
case is supposed OF q farmer who has
hundred acres OF land worth $50 an
acre. On such land money lender will
advance ''to the extreme limit not
more than $1,000 or 3315 per cent.
This, says the Lemocrat, sis the cash
value" that the money lender will place
upon the sheep and land. Surely it is
not necessary to say that in neither case
is the amount loaned the 'fcash yalue''
but only one third OF the cash value, an
amount that experience has proved to
be, what i'll all ordinary circumstances
it is perfectly safe to loan on property
In fact the Lemocrdi supposes the
sheep to be worth $40O, and the land
SO 5000 yet it would have them assessed
at y of these amounts because that is
all that could be borrowed on them. 1t
sjust such methods OF reasoning reduced
to actual practice that have made cur
methods OF assessment = laughing stock.
A man owing u band OF sheep worth
SS, 900 in cash or q piece OF real estate
worth the same amount has only to re-
turn a thousand dollars of Indebtedness
to the assessor and he is tax free Thus
if all the taxable property in the state,
rated at one third ofits value, amounted
to one. hundred and fifty million dollars
and all the Indebtedness OF the state
= amounted to fifty millions and was re-
turned as owing to the banks or to Port
land merchants the state and counties
of Oregon would not get cent OF taxes
from all the property in the Oregon
commonwealth. The Joeunai however
somewhat atones for its folly by de.
nouncing the iEiquity of assessing rail
road property at but q fraction of its
value while land adjoining it, as is Ger
tainly the case in this county and pos
sibly in other places, is sometimes taxed
at every cent it is worth. The state
board has not rectitied this evil. 1t ha.
not made the attempt, but it has ''equal
lied" the tax on mortgages, which is in
variably paid by the borrower by max
ing it fifty per cent higher than tn,
average of nearly all other property
and about five hundred per cent. highe
than railroad property. OF course thi
is right. An Oregonian who has sufh
cient enterprise to borrow money to en-
able him to extend his business or max
needed improvements ought to b
cinched and the Journal and Democrat
in theory, would encourage the process
The interstate commission have an
nounced decision by which they de