The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-10
ON EQUITABLE TAXATION

(Continued from Second Page) elect the same persons members of the board of relief who are elected asses sors.
 TAXATION OF PERSONAL PROP
 ERTY.
 A special committee on taxation of the State of Connecticut, which report ed in 1887 said i'll reference to taxation of personal property: AS the law stands 1t may be burden upon the con science of many, but it Is burden on the property of the few; not because there are few who ought to pay, but be- cause there are few who can be made to pay. The result is that few towns, a few estates and few persons of high sense of honesty, bear the entire weight of the tax. Such has been the univer- sal result of similar laws elsewhere"
 Similar statements are made in the report of the labor commissioner. It is said that the listing of book accounts or bills receivable is ignored in many towns, that the 'entire neglect to place in their lists of property liable to taxa tion personally consisting of individual notes is of considerable magnitude" The commission of 'S7 recommended the exemption of farmers and mechanics tools and books. The assessors of Naugatuck declare that personal prop erty can never be found and should be exempted.
 More stringent laws have been recom- mended and in 1882 an attempt was made to force the making of more accu- rate lists by imposing a penalty of 10 per cent. for not returning list the first year, 20 per cent. the second year, 30 per cent. the third year and so on. Tn 1895 the law was found so unsatis- factory that 1t was repealed
 I shall endeavor to show you that the only remedy for the present evils to the taxation of personal property is it's en- tire exemption from taxation; that eve rywhere and always the attempt to tax personal property has been followed by injustice and oppression, and that the more stringent the law the worse are the results.
 The taxation of personal property in the United States is a survival of an- cient methods which other countries have outgrown. Under primitive condi- tions agriculture is the main industry land has little value, wealth consists chiefly of visible personal property and 1t is possible to reach and tax it with considerable degree of uniformity. When large cities have grown up and personal property assumes new forms of an intangible character such as bonds, stocks and notes, it becomes impossible to tax it, because most of it cannot be found.
 The actual working of the system is very much the same everywhere as de- ecribed by former tax assessor of Brooklyn, who said: "I made inquiry had been assessing heretofore, and they told me they simply guessed at it. If man in the manufacturing business was prosperous looking, he had a pretty good assessment levied upon him. If he lived in brown stone house he was assessed ten thousand dollars; if he lived in a brick house he was assessed little less, off with two thousand dollars. Some amusing episodes came up in my expe- rience every once in a w1ile We as- sessed servant in a gentlemans house for five thousand dollars simply because his residence was with his master. The whole system of personal assessments in Brooklyn is simply absurd
 They must be simply absurd in any large city With a stringent law per sonal property can be found in small towns and the result is that, in almost