The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1893-03-04

l
no longer up to the duties of farmers; they want
| to be sporting men, city men, politicians and
| every hing but steady farmers, and then they
| 20 under and blame the taxes and everything but
| themselves.
I'm other words thenyou would make 1t APP
| pear that farmers are educated for everything
| but farming?"
| Eyes this country educates the boys and girls
| away from the farms. In Germany we do not
do so. We take the boy and girl away from the
school when they are not moro than fourteen and
| teach them to work and they grow up to work
| and stick to it,.
| Mr.. Editor: The above dialogue had with
| q German farmer. Having been an American
farmer myself, l concede that there is sufficient
| wisdom in it to thoroughly relieve me of any
further anXetes on behalf of the tax oppressed
| (?) agricultural community. CARROLL COUNTY.
baltimore Sun.
| The above article taken from the
Baltimore SIN of Wednesday is in
the main fair statement of the fact
maintained by the WIG in an
editorial of last week, viz: that in
Cecil County as in the State gener-
ally, the proportion of successful
farmers is as large as that in any
other business, success in any occu-
patton being largely dependent upon
individual ability, economy and in
dustry. The German farmers ideas
are undoubtedly correct, that the
failures in farming are largely attrib'
utable to the fact that so many of
our farmers are not educated for
their work, or at least imperfectly SO.
But while we admit the truth of
the Germans premises, we decidedly
dissent from the correctness of the
conclusion drawn from them, that
successful farmers in Maryland owe
in any measure their prosperity to
equitable taxation.
Indeed we believe that the contrary
is true, that if they have prospered
they have done SO, in spite of
unequal and unjust taxation.
What other conclusion can be
drawn from the frequently repeated
and uncontradicted statement, that
eighty five per cent of the taxes
collected in Maryland IS paid upon
land and the improvements thereon.
Isn't it very plain proposition
that if the hundreds of thousands of
dollars now invested in personal
property in Maryland and escaping
taxation, can be dragged from its
invisibility, and be made to bear its
just and honest proportion oil the
public burden of taxation, that the
basis of assessable property in the
State would be SO measurably in.
creased, as to lessen the rate of
taxation upon every farmers lands,
his stock, his implements and his
tools, and the aggregate amount Of
taxes paid by him be perceptibly
reduced -?
In this unequal and therefore I'M
Just burden of taxation now borne
by visible property, in the shape OF
lands, and the improvements Of
lands, by tangible personal property,
in horses and stock, and the imple-
ments of his trade, lies the hardship
of the farmers tax burden.
That he can hold his own, and
even prosper, in spite of it, in no
degree mitigates the injustice or the
hardship of the present system.
Read between the lines, the arti-
Gle quoted above from the San is
intended by implication or inference
as an endorsement of the present
system, or rather want of system
of equitable taxation. The German
farmer is made to say "ZHe taxes
and e0eyy thing about this country suit
me 0'e,y a0eH indeed. l came here
worth not dollar, and | worked at
first for fifty cents day, and now l
am better off than the men | first
worked for"
In all probability this self compla-
cent and thoroughly satisfied Carroll
county husbandman is a good Dem
ocrat and voted for Mr.. Cleveland
last fall. Probably he is a weekly
reader OF Brother Vanderford' AdOo-
cate which in common with every
other good Democratic paper in
Maryland, dinned it into the farmers
ears how they were being robbed by
that robber baron, the protective
tariff.
Did this prosperous Carroll County
German then show sufficient intelli-
gence to say that "The Democratic
taxes and everything else (the Re
publican tarifD about this country
suit me very we'll indeed"
We doubt it, and believe the
Carroll County man was then doubly
more oppressed by Democratic taxes
than by Republican tariffs.
Therefore we carrot accept his
declarations as sincere, and if made
as stated in the Sun, they were made
in his own interest, his prosperity
under a Republican tariff having
raised him into the tax dodger class,
and with which class he now sympa-
thizes.
In no other way can We reasonably
explain his apparent contradiction,
when he talks about farming like a
sensible farmer, and argues on taxa.
ton like the veriest tax dodger.
He must be a Carroll County
farmer of the Frank Brown type.
THE amenities of politics we're
happily exemplifed in the testi-