The herald., 1897-02-19
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1907.
A TAX TO BE DOUBLED


sity is sought to be doubled. This Is
what might be called in these hard times
quite an increase. Not only IS the tax
to be doubled, but it is to be fastened
upon this community in perpetuty. The
first proposal was to fix It to run for ten
years Good year, bad year, use or
waste, the producers are to enjoy ten
years or a perpetuity of double tax for
the Berkeley university.
can have bulletins like No. 11o,
the last of the agricultural colleges doc
uments. Indefinitely multiplied. The fol-
lowing sentence occurs in this precious
plant guide:
I'm the following pages we will at
tempt to present in a brief compass
the more important points to be con-
sidered in the treatment of plants. But
it should be distinctly recognized that
local experience and experiment is the
only real guide for successful practice"
If this is true, why publish the bulle-
tin2 The rest of this extraordinary pa
per would confirm any judicious person
with the recent parody on prunes from
the same Berkeley agriculturists. When
we reached the point of "frogging
prunes'' we thought of the two senior
students costing twenty thousand dol
lars each in that college, and fell into
an agricultural reverie, drifting to blue
finance.
The new tax will amount to something
over one hundred and twenty thousand
dollars yeE on the present state valu-
alton. AS the valuation increases, so
will the amount raised by the double
tax. The only consolation in the situa-
tion is that such a fixed permanent tax
cannot bind a subsequent Legislature
with less of attaches, printers plunder,
etc.
The recent fatuous attack on the cit
rus industry of Southern California by
the Berkeley agriculturists is on a par
with Prof. Hilgards advice to Richard
Gird that he could not grow sugar beets
on the alkali lands of Chino. Thous
ands and thousands of pounds of sugar
beets are grown there and made into
sugar in the great refinery, in spite of
Berkeley advice
The trouble with Berkeley agriculture
is that the officers of its college are
neither searchers for nor eXpounders of
truth. They have one practical faculty
that of politics.
The duty of the state in education
ends when it has given a plain. sound.
common school education to its citi
Hens. The great mass of the people can
never afford either the time or money
to drift on into Latin and Greek and
more scholastic acquirements. Those
who can afford the time for these stud
les can afford to pay for them. The in
stitutions of the so-called higher educa-
tion should live or die as their merits
command support. If Yale and Harvard
Princeton and Cornell, Johns Hopkins
and Chicago, can live and prosper with
out state aid, SO can Berkeley. 1t is
surely unjust to leave Berkeley untaxed
While all our local institutions, strug-
Cling along on short commons and uv-
ing by volunteer support alone. should
be taxed. Taxed and taxed for the ben-
eft of rival The University of South
ern California, and such colleges as the
Occidental st. Vincent's, Claremont,
Chaffee Agricultural, Throop Polytech-
mic, etc, must not only support them
selves but also pay a forced contribu-
tion TO the Berkeley institution that
treats them with patronizing contempt.