St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-02-15

The brewers and wholesale liquor
men as they will be when the legisla-
ture adjourns.
The work of considering" the bill
| for the taxation of railroad lands has
begun. Those who watched the course
of this bill in the senate two years ago
| will have no difficulty in locating the
influences which are buffeting it from
pillar to post at this session. There is
only one way to successfully handle
measure Of this kind, and that is to
FIX it in committees. Nobody had an
idea until the bill got into the senate
that there were so many sides to it.
The people who read it imagined it's
provisions We're very simple. The pro-
position was to levy a tax on the I'M
! used lands owned by railroad compan-
les, just exactly as such tax is levied
| on the unused lands held by thousands
Of non-residentS, as well as of resi-
dents of this state. It was expressly
stipulated that this should in no way
| conflict with the collection Of the gross
earnings tax which is now being paid
to the state. If a farmer owns 200 acres
of land 100 Of which he uses for cult
walton and the other hundred of
which he elects to leave unemployed,
he pays taxes on the unused land just
| as regularly as he does on that which
is used. The proposition is to make
the railroad pay taxes just as the
farmer does. The farmer pays the
| taxes on the land, and then he pays
taxes on the grain he raises on the
land, the cattle which eat the grain
raised on the land and the calves
which are raised by the cattle which
eat the grain which is raised On the
land. But members Of the legislature
are sometimes SO fearful OF commit
ting a wrong, so in dread lest the
rights of anybody be trampled upon
that they must needs be very careful.
So the bill goes TO the committee on
tax laws. Then it should go to the
Judiciary committee in order that it
may be definitely known whether there
is any technical flaw in it, and if there
is none to provide one. 1t should then
be sent to the committee on public
lands, the duty of which committee
should be to learn whether it has any
duty in connection with the bill.
By this time some other committee.
through which it has passed, will re-
amendment which it forgot to remen-
Der to attach and it will go back there.
Then it will go on general orders once
or twice and be referred and re-re-
ferred to a few other committees. each
with the most thoroughly honest in
tentions, and finally come up for pass
age at the close Of the session with it's
eyes knocked out, several of it's teeth
gone and but little about it to remind
one of the smiling, blushing creature
1t was when it first put in it's appear
ance, the child of all parties, the one
thing needful.
And the funny part Of it is that every
man who touches it does so with the
highest motives, the most disinterest-
ed friendship and with a view to en-
acting law that will be as stringent
as possible without going far enough
to hazard the present safe laws gov
erning railroad taxation.
Of the senators who opposed the bill
two years ago only three were re-
turned by their constituents, Messrs.
Keller, .McHale and Stockton, while
five who favored are returned. In sew
eral districts, notably in Meeker
county, the passage of the bill was
made the issue of the campaign, and
wherever this was done the result
showed that the people favored the
bill.
Notwithstanding all that may be
said, however, nobody seems anxious
to wager any large amount that the
bill will become a law Not but what
the senate wants to pass it, but the
senator's are so mortally afraid that
the bill will pass in an imperfect form
that they will amend it to death, and
then when each senator finds that the
amendment glued on by some other
senator was put there for an improper
motive they will be compelled to vote
against it on principle-that is if it
ever comes to vote.