The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-03-15
IS 1T ROBBERY.

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first, a robbing of the counties Of Salt
Lake and Weber to educate the child
rem in other parts Of the territory
that in the late Legislature IAN at
tempt was made to begin to right that
wrong" that the Governor stood right
in with the outside counties and said
in effect in his veto. that these counties
had robbed Salt Lake SO long that to
begin to change matters now would
be sectional and would cause hard
feelings" and further that 'nearly a
majority Of the Legislature has made
a city hold up its hands and give to
the robbers the key to its safe with
the Governor Of the territory patting
the hold-ups on the back"
There is no need to say what paper
contains the outrageous nonsense and
silly errors which we have quoted
above; there is only one paper in Utah
or in the United States that would be
at the same time so idiotic and so
false
The revenue law Of this territory
provides for a territorial tax of two
mills on the dollar for territorial pur-
poses, and three mills on the dollar for
school purposes. This, Of course. goes
into the territorial treasury, but the
school fund is paid out to the several
counties to be divided among the res
pective school districts. according to the
school population. In addition, each
county is authorized to levy tax
for school purposes not TO exceed two
mills on the dollar. For the building
and repairing Of schoolhuses each dis
trict, by a majority vote of the taxpay-
.ers in the district,may assess an addi-
tional tax not to exceed two mills
on the dollar
The purpose Of the law is to provide
flee tuition for all children between the
ages of six and sixteen years. The
territorial school tax is for the benefit
of all the school children of the terri
tory. 1t has been found insufficient in
many places with the county school
tax added, to educate the children dur
ing the entire year Therefore the
schools are closed a portion Of the time,
particularly during the summer
months. If the school revenue were
reduced the schools would be cores
pondingly crippled.
Is there anything wrong in this ter
ritorial school tax? Is it robbery Of
any particular portion of the territory
which is more wealthy, when the rev.
enue derived from general taxation is
paid out pro rata according to the school
population? If so, the whole system of
taxation for airy public purpose what
ever is robbery. There should then be
no territorial or state tax at all, be-
cause the wealthiest districts will pay
more taxes than others, and the reve-
nue. thus derived is expended where
necessary. regardless. Of the identical
spot where it is collected. Money paid
out for roads and bridges in a poor
county would thus be robbery of Salt
Lake and Weber counties. Anything
expended at a place where it was not
raised would be giving the people there
the key to the Salt Lake safe" and
permitting the poor county to loot
the rich city.
Carrying this absurdity to its legiti-
mate conclusion, a county tax would
be as great a robbery as a territorial
or state tax, because it would be ex-
pended according to necessity, such
portions of the county as required the
greatest expenditure being in all prob
spots where the least revenue
had been collected. Each district
would then have to levy and collect
it's own taxes, and the taxpayer who
paid the most would be entitled to the
largest expenditure in the neighbor-
hood Of the property that yielded the
highest taxi
Under the old schoos system, each
school district decided as to the amount
of school funds that should be raised
by taxation. The paper which is now
engaged in abusing the Governor for
refusing to cut down the school levy.
raised continual tempest because
there was no adequate provision by
territorial law for a territorial school
tax. Every man who opposed such a
tax it declared was an enemy of edu-
cation" But now, simply for partisan
it denounces that very sys-
tenn of a territorial school tax as worse
than highway robbery.
But supposing there was anything in
its absurd theory, in what way would
the proposition to cut down the terri
torial school tax half mill be any
rectifcation Of the alleged wrong? The
principle Of assessment and expendi-
ture would remain just the same. Salt
Lake and Weber counties would pay
exactly in the same disproportion as
before. The poor counties with large
school population, though having less
money in the aggregate, would receive
the same ratio Of the fund
and have the same ratio of reduction
in its territorial school tax as would
The richer counties.
The only way to cure the imaginary
wrong worked UP on this point would
be to repeal the territorial school tax