The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-07-19
BOARD OF EQUALIZATION
Is Now Meeting at the County
Court House.
WILL TAKE THIRTY DAYS
To Fqualize and Listen to the Kicks of
Taxpayers Tnsrs Are Not so
Many Complaints Expect
ed This Year.

The county commissioners. a. NJ.
Walker, j. NJ. Geary and J.. ID. Rom. met
yesterday as a board of equalization.
They will continue to meet as such
board for the next 30 days, at least they
expect 1t will take them that length Of
time to equalize everything. 1t is not
likely, however. hat there will be as
much work for the board this year as
there was last. George s. Miller, the
assessor. 1t is understood, left values
this year very much as the board of
equalization left them last year. The
great kick made last year was on the
general rise made in the assessed value
of stocks of merchandise. All stocks of
this description were, ii will be remem-
bered. raised one-third. leaving them at
two-thirds of their actual value. Mr..
Miller. it is understood. has left the
stocks about where they stood after the
board got though with them last year,
though. of course. he has made allow
ances for increases and decreases.
Yesterday the members of the board
of equalization were just looking over
the ground, as il were. They were con-
sidering city property and sizing up the
new buildings that have been built in
the past year and looking up the value
of their improvements. They listened
to one or two kicks from irate citizens,
but on the whole the session was a mild
one.
The citizen who wanted to sell his
house and lot to the board for the as
sessment placed upon them by the as
SCISSOR was there. He is always present
and is generally pretty safe in offering
to dispose of his property at reduced
rates 10 the board, as IL is a bluff hat is
never called. There vas an orator of
this description present yesterday aft
rnooD and his imprisoned address
came floating out Of the cracks in the
doors of the commissioners room and
penetrated to the other offices adjacent.
There is in some peoples minds a
question whether the commissioners or
dinarily are not well paid for their
trouble M services. but when they re-
solve themselves into a board of equal
iZation there is no question about it
they arm about 100 times more than
they get. They frequently nave to sit
like General Shafter watching the bat
tie raging around Santiago, powerless to
check or stop the torrent or verbal am
munition fired at them as though COM
Ills HUM a Idplu-DIt sun. II was dliit
amusing to watch the members of the
board towards the end of their session
last year. They had become accustom-
ed to being jumped on and hearing all
of kicks coming from mad
taxpayers. Towards the close of the
session, however, when they would no.
tice an irate citizen walking I'm through
the door n paving the air with his
front feet they appeared to know what
was coming, and the members of the
board would assume a look of placid
suavity and a beautiful smile would
pass across their c~ountenanCes. The
irate individual would be given hat por-
ton of the floor that he a not al
ready taken and allowed To maxi his
speech. In the course of half an hour
or SO. when the irate one had exhausted
himself. most of the adjectives in the
English language and his subject. Mr..
Walker would calmly look up and say
in an angelic tone of voice: rs that all
you have to say?"
The irate party would kick himself
when he found nat little effect all his
stimulated wrath n oratorical effort
had upon the board. IL was impossible
To get the members of the board excited.
They became as ~unmagnetic as If sitting
on chairs with glass legs.
A man who sits on the board of equal
iZation learns that the saying, 1t is an
Americans privilege to kick" Is no mid
summer nights dream, but an actual,
corporeal fact. They are great kickers.
but they soon get over THEN mad.