The Opelousas courier., 1895-01-19
Tie City OF Washington Pay Its Own
Municipal Expensese

VI washington Pay Its Own
Municipal Expenses?
Our daily namesake of this city had
an editorial which in it's trend was q
special plea for the landlords of Wash.
lngton. The question under consider.
atlon was the proposition, more thar
once bruited in congress-. that the cit.
OF Washington should itself paw the
cost OF running the municipality, in.
stead OF, as now, having the govern
lnent pay half of it, and the Times edi-
torlal went so far as to declare that
.nose who favored such a measu were
lnoulglng in "a great deal6f dema.
goguery" (sc). 1t pleaded that the
question of justice entered into the
matter; that the owners of Wash
1ngton property had brought their
capital from elsewhere and had
invested it here in improvements, be-
cause 1t was a profitable investment"
n may be true; whether it is or not
makes no difference. The question is,
ought n government to pay taxes to
the District of Columbia for it's build
lngs in which is done the business Of
the people of the United States? We
maintain that it should not. We be-
lleve in the principle of leaving our
government free of taxation on it's
property, which, after all, belongs to
us all, and which, in ninety-nine cases
out OF a hundred, is all the property
we have any title to.
is there any other town, city, county
or state in the United States that
places any tax on any United States
property? Not one. Is there any other
town, city, county or state in the
United States that is benefited by what
the Times calls the s~workshopso of
the United States to the extent the Dis
trict of Columbia is! Not one. What
would be the value of the lands and i'm
provemeats of the district if the gov
eminent should decide to remove it's
workshops" from here? If the gov
eminent seat had not been established
here there would have been no Wash
ington for our sprightly, but some
what t~hick-headed, little friend to be
published in. On the site of the
present handsome home of the
Times there was once a bog.
1t would, be there yet if this were not
the nations capital. Further, it is the
money paid in these workshops" that
keeps the business of Washington in
motion. Compared with other cities of
tbs same size, Washington has no man.
ufacturing to speak of. The principal
industry seems to be trying to sell hun
dred-dollar lots for five hundred dollars
to confding employees of the nations
workshops" It is their money that
is turned over and yer and finally sent
away or sailed down in the banks. The
owner of the Times knows it is a COM
mon thing for small towns to induce
people to remove their workshops there
by offering them immunity from taxa
ton. Then how foolish to tax the
whole people of the United States for
the privilege of having their work
here.
OF course, we can understand how
the landlords of the District would pre-
fer to pay half the taxes rather than
the whole-they are in money by it.
But how about the people of the
at large, who are now taxed to pay
half the running expenses Of the Dis
trict besides furnishing all the money
put into circulation? They do not gen.
orally know that they do the first of
;hese. When they find it out there
will be a howl go up that will astonish
The Washington landlords. National
fThe editor would rather let the city
# Washington pay its own taxes than
,elp to pay them himself. How do you
eel about it gentle reader and tax