The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1900-02-21
BACK TAN QUESTIONS. b

BACK TAN QUESTIONS.
There is one point in the back tax
issue between the State Revenue Agent
and the railroads, quite apart from the
compromise proposition, on which the
Herald would ask answers of him, or
the Legislature: He has sued for
taxes accruing subsequent to the sums
embraced in the Supreme Courts June,
1898, decision. Considering the States
interest, is it not the fact that this
was an excessive and wholly unneces-
sary exercise of zeal and duty? Is it
not the fact that upon the final and
successful adjudication of the already
pending suits, that the liability for
and the payment of these subse-
| quent taxes would have followed, and
without further proceeding or cost to
the State? Is it not the fact that the
only effect of these recent suits is to
tax the State twenty per cent com
missions on the large sums involved
some four or five hundred thousand
dollars for the reward and benefit of
the Revenue Agent and his attorneys:
whose labors consist in the simple fill
ing of declaration?
If these are the facts, it is asked the
Legislature. do they not constitute a
gross and grotesque neglect and abuse
of the States authority and interests,
for that body to tolerate or permit
their contamination? Should there
not be legislation to estop the Revenue
Agent from the further prosecution of
these suits, which will so senselessly
take from the State some thirty or forty
thousand dollars per annum for the
past two years, and for every year un.
til the railroads have been brought to
surrender? Such number of dollars
seem to the Herald worth the while of
Mississippi's Legislature to save. in
stead of giving away to certain worthy
but already tolerably we'll provided for,
gentlemen.
The unanimity with which the State
press has come out in support of the
proposition of compromise of the reve-
nue. agents back tax suits against the
|. c. Railroad Company, is gratifying
evidence of the possession of right
PRINCIPLES. The Herald's views upon
the subject of the back tax suits have
been so fully expressed in the past as
to scarcely call for e-statement. To
our mind the plain, pivotal, facts es
sential to honest judgment have been
untouched. and cannot be touched, 10y
the arguments of the revenue agent OF
the reasoning of the Supreme Court
opinion of 1898
These facts are that the State of Mis-
sissippi, in its sovereign capacity and
through its constitutional institutions
and agencies, created certain eXemp.
tiOns of privileges as inducements for
investment of foreign capital in rail
roads, which our own people could not
and sought not to build The State
condition then was such that the in.
! ducements referred to were essential
to the promotion of these enterprises
which were in turn essential to the
uses and convenience of the citizens
Their creation was affirmed as valid
and constitutional by the Supreme
Court as formerly, and most ably, con
stituted. And under the faith thus
created the railroad promoters and
builders built and afterward sold the
roads to the Illinois Central Company
To our mind the subversion of those
previous decisions so as to operate
against the present holders of the
roads for the years of taxes antecedent
thereto, upon the motion of mere
creature of the Legislature, constitutes
an act of unrighteousness, bad policy
and bad faith, the degree of which we
will not attempt to characterize, again.
1t is one from which a right regard for
the states reputation and good stand
ing should shrink. TichSbur9 Hclud
The press of the Sixth district, ably