The Owosso times., 1900-01-05

Dr.. Kilmer & Co., Binghamton, N. Y. ane
| mention this paper.
municipal purposes. Now, this rule i
as just fair and equal as rule can be
And under this rule comes all tht
property in the state except that paying
specific taxes, g railroads, telegraph
telephone and express companies, depot
companies, plank road companies, in
surance companies and river improve
ment companies.
'But will anyone pretend 10 say that
| all the property, except these com
panies above mentioned, are taxed
equally? We all know that they are
not. Yet the law is absolutely equal
aud just in its provisions. The diff
Guilty is the lack of enforcement of the
law Now as TO the property paying
specific taxes which is a tax on gross
receipts or earnings. In other words,
the telegraph, telephone and express
companies are obliged to pay to the
state SO out of every 300 they receive
before they pay single dollar's ex-
pense of any kind or nature. Railroads
pay upon their gross receipts n rate
ranging from $3.50 to S5 upon each 500
received. Thus poor road pays the
lower rate and a rich road the higher.
Do any of our merchants, manufactur-
ers or other business men de; ire to pay
at these rates in place of under the uni
form rule?
Fault has been found with this
| specific rate system because the rate had
necessarily to be fixed by the legisla-
ture, subjecting the legislators to the
influences of powerful corporations.
So it does, and so did the contemplated
law under the proposed amendment,
for the rates had to be fixed by the
legislature on the different classes of
corporations spoken Of which must be
an arbitrary rate.
NO OTHER WAY PROVIDED.
There is no other way, as it goes to
Ino sCuOOl luuu anu IL uOJ HAUL VI
regulated by the needs of the people,
and the influence would be the same
More than this, the appointment of a
board of assessment of perhaps three
men, upon whom devolved the duty of
assessing this vast amount of property
They, too. would be subject to this
same influence, and this difficulty ag-
gravated instead of diminished
IL believe, after careful study and
consideration, that our present system
is the better of the two and is inexpen.
sive in operation. Whom we can
separate our state tax from our local,
so as to do away with state equalization
and the incentive to shrink values for
assessment, when each county and
municipality stands entirely by itself as
separate taxing district. we may reach
something like equal taxation. Sup
pose our federal tax was mixed up with
our state. county and municipal taxa
ton, a nice time we would have.
GAS to the question of the submission
of this amendment. The constitution
provides that it shall require two-thirds
vote of each house elect to submit con
stitutional amendment. Now, if it is or
ever was deemed to be the duty of
every legislator to submit every propo-
sition OF every name or nature to vote
of the people, why require two-thirds
vote, instead of bare majority of the
members-elect, or why require even
that; why not submit it on simple
majority of those present and vo ing.
A legislator has duty to perform, even
a greater duty in submitting constitu-
tional amendment than he has in the
passage of bill or law, and the trainers
of the constitution recognized this duty
and its magnitude when they required a
two-thirds vote. 1t was not intended
that every scheme OF every demagogue
to inject his populstic heresies into the
constitution should be sumbitted to a
vote of the people. 1t would be just as
reasonable and far less dangerous for
legislators to vote for all sorts of bad
laws on the theory that the people
ought and as right should be per-
mitted to trythem If they did not like
them they could be repealed.
MORTGAGE TAX LAW RECALLED.
Indeed, this has been done many
times, to the serious detrment aud n.
convenience OF the people, and for the