The evening tribune. (Pawtucket, R.I.) 189?-190?, 1897-01-26
The Mayors Ringing Advice
Ought to Bear Good Fruit
the Coming Year.
Wholesale Making Of Personal
Property Voters Must Be
TabOOed By Assessors.
THE TAXPAYERS ARE INDIGNANT.
Men Have Been Placed Upon the Personal
Property List Who Do Not Owa $500
Worth Of Personal Effects-Notes.

That part of Mayor Gottschalk's recent
inaugural address concerning the padding
OF the personal property lists ought TO be
warning to the political bosses who have
resorted in the past to this despicable
method of electing their candidates. The
Mayor says that it il deserving of the con-
demnation of every honest, law abiding
citizen. 1t opens the way for men to be
elected to the City Council who have not
the business or property qualifications to
hold that position. The time may yet
come, continues the Mayor, when the city
OF Central Falls will have cause to regret
the placing of men on the personal prop
erty list who have no right to be there. He
realizes that the padding of the personal
property list is nothing new to either po-
litical party, and that it Is done simply to
perpetuate the party in power.
It is time that halt in this practice
was called by the taxpayers, as large per-
centage of those on the personal property
list have no moral right to be there. Men
are placed on the list who are known 20
be without dollar, continues the Mayor,
their wages assigned, and owing to trades
men and others much more than the value
of the personal property given them by an
obliging Board of Assessors. Moreover,
many of these men do not pay their own
tax, it being paid by certain political
leaders, the tax receipts being handed to
them on or before the day of election.
This may be good politics, but it is not
just or honest to the real property owners,
and it is certainly not for the best inter-
ests of the city at large.
1t simply nullifies the action and wishes
of the taxpayers, because a large percent
age of the personal property list is under
the control and dictation of few poll
ticians. 1t is the duty of the Board of
Tax Assessors to examine the property of
the personal property holders as carefully
as they do the property of the real estate
holders. Some may advance the argument
that this would be impossible, and could
not be done. II this is 30 then it would
be wise to have the whole thing abol-
ished, as it tends only to the corruption
of the voter. 1t places him in the posi-
tion Of a servant to the men who pay his
tax and compels him to vote according to
the dictation OF the bosses.
There is no denying the fact that the
spirit of the law is being violated by the
leaders of both parties, but more particu-
larly by the dominant party. 1t was
common report that the personal property
lists in the Fourth,and Fifth Wards were
padded to an alarming extent by the Re-
publican managers. If there had been an
honest expression of the genuine property
and personal property voters in the last
election, these wards would have been rep
resented by two Democrats. The citizens
Of this city are looking to the Tax Assess
ors to put stop to this practice this year,
SO that bona fide. voters can elect men
who will legislate for the interest of the
whole city.