The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-10-26
POINTED QUESTIONS AS TO HIS
PUBLIC RECORD.
Did He Prepare a Revenue Bill
Which Ingeniously offered Induce
ments to the Standard Oil Trust
and the Copper Tube Trust, While
Purporting to Be in the General In
terest of the Taxpayerp

Philadelphia, Pa.
My Dear Sir: am in receipt of your In
vitation to speak upon the issues of the
campaign at New Castle Lawrence coun-
ty, on Oct. 26, and should be very glad to
accept but for the fact that / have an
important engagement to I'LL at Lynch
burg, Va, upon the same day.
lf IL were possible for me to be present
and speak | should not hesitate to discuss
local or state issues with Mr.. Greasy, the
Democratic candidate for state treasurer.
Mr.. Greasy occupied very important pO-
sition in the last legislature. lie was the
ranking Democrat upon the appropriation
committee, which had charge of the bills
providing for the expenditure of the
states moneys. He was also the ranking
Democrat upon the ways and means COM
mittee. whose duty IL was to provide rev.
enues to meet the appropriations.
1t would be interesting If he would ex-
plain what part he took as a member or
the appropriations committee to keep
down the appropriations so that they
would come within the estimated rev.
enues. and IL would be still more inter-
esting If he explained what real efforts
he made, as a member of the ways and
means committee, to provide revenue so
that the public school and other appro-
priations made by the legislature might
all be paid. Did he try to pass, or did
he help defeat the direct inheritance
tax bill, which would have raised largo
revenues from the estates of the wealthy
without burdening the living poor?
The Democratic party nominated Mr..
Greasy under the impression that no
had fathered a revenue bill which, had
1t not been defeated by the senate,
would have helped the farmers and bene-
fitted the state and permitted the pay
ment of the full appropriation of $5,5OG-
600 per annum to public schools. A cor
rect understanding of his bill must put
him in a very bad light with the tax
payers of the commonwealth generally
and show that he was nominated under
false pretenses.
THE QUESTION OF TRUSTS.
Upon the stump Mr.. Greasy has been
declaiming against trusts. At Lehighton,
on Saturday evening last, as reported in
the Philadelphia Press, he said: Have
you ever thought of the small oil pro-
ducer, how he has been wiped out by the
great oil trust because the laws have been
made in favor of this gigantic monopoly?
Have you ever thought how the individual
coal operator has been put out of bust
ness by allowing great corporations and
combines in the commonwealth to do a
business contrary to the purposes of our
constitution and directly against the In
terests of all the people?"
OF course, he refers to the Standard Oil
| Trust, which, as everybody knows. holds
| the stocks of many Pennsylvania oil, gas
| and pipe line companies. The so-called
Greasy bill, read in place by Mr.. Greasy
! Feb. a. 1899, which passed the house but
| failed to pass the senate, was a very
long bill of fifty-three sections, purport-
| ing to provide an elaborate scheme for
| the taxation Of corporations, persons and
| things, even including horses, mules and
| cattle above the age of years.
Now, isn't 1t a little singular that If
| Mr.. Greasy has such an antipathy toward
trusts and so bewails the fact that laws
! have been made in their interest, he for
| got to tax them in his boasted revenue
| measure? l was thoroughly familiar with
| his bill at the time, and have just read 1t
| through again. 1t does not tax trusts In
| any form, and the word trusts" is not
mentioned anywhere in its ffty-three
| sections.
The Standard Oil trust under his bill
would, therefore, have gone entirely free
of taxation, as would also the great Cop
per Tube Trust, which, he says, is oper-
ated in his own county. Furthermore, the
| corporations whose stocks the oil trust
owns would have had their taxes very
materially reduced had the Greasy bill
| become a law. They now pay a tax OF
five mills annually upon valuation OF
| their capital stock, which the Supreme
court has declared means valuation OF
| their property, assets and franchises. The
Greasy bill repealed that tax and i'm
posed a state tax of five mills upon a
valuation of their property alone.
True, 1t provided that in valuing the
property the value of the funded debt
| should be added to the value of the
shares. But none of these STANDARD
companies has any funded debt, so, ol
course, there would be nothing to add
hn f,,vA ,a,sII hn roc DsE
bill would not amount to any more, II in
deed as much, as the five mills state ta1
they are already paying.
But in addition to the five mills state
tax on capital stock, the pipe line com
panies owned by the Standard trust are
now under existing laws, paying STATE
tax of eight mills upon their gross re
ceipts. The Greasy bill as it passed thu
house, increased the gross receipts ta'
from eight mills to ten mills, or l pei
centum, but limited 1t to corporation!
mot subject to the tax herelnbefOre i'm
posed" AS the Standards pipe line com
panies were subject to the five mills
property tax imposed by the third sec
tion, they were thus expressly relieved
by the fifteenth section of the gross re
cepts tax of eight mills which they nov
pay.
But worse than this Mr.. Creasy's bill
in its third section, after imposing tn,
aforementioned state tax of five MILL
on the value of the property of corpora
tions expressly declares that "hereaftc
the property, when indispensably nCces
sary to the exercise of public franchise
and the shares and the funded debt o
every company taxable under this sec
ton, shall be taken or construed TO tx
empt so much of the real estate owned b!
any company as shall not be necessar.
to the exercise by such company of III
corporate franchise"
TAXATION OF CORPORATIONS.
| When the commonwealth grants tO al
oil or natural gas company the franchise
to own oil or gas lands and to product
| oil or gas therefrom, or to a coal com
pany the right to own coal lands anC
mine coal therefrom, the ownership o
these lands is essential to the exercise
of the fraI chise. These lands are nov
subjected to the same county, city, Dor
ough, road, school, poor and other take
as are paid by farmers or other tndtVidu
ais owning similar properties.
1t is within bounds TO say that at leas
one-fourth, in value, of all the real estat
in the commonwealth Is owned by cor
porations and is essential TO the exerci5
of their corporate franchises Mr.
Creasy's bill relieved these oil, coal an,
other corporations from all local take
In consideration OF their paying a stat
tax of five mills, which is no more thai
the capital stock tax that they are al
ready paying.
How this could be helpful to the far
mer or individual citizen, it Is Difficult
to see. This loss to the local treasure
the bill proposed to make up in part b.
diverting to the local treasures the one
fourth of the personal property tax, tn
mercantile licenses, the tax on writs
Wills, deeds, etc, which now go into tn
l.rts.N ,la1 NnFfth
the gross receipts tax from transpOrta
Iinn Comnnnles this diversion would hnX