The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-03-30
CLEVELAND BAKING POWDER CO,
 NEW YORK.

value is or is not what thing will sell
 for. A business man like eX-Govetnor
 Dewell, or General Bradley, or MT. Ad-
 Ter, has studied the market values and
 practical principles of buying and sell ing more in one week than an editor who sells nothing but words learns in a
 lifetime. The goods that business men
 sell are taxable and have an ascertain able value, and the business men must
 study market values and the practical
 principles that determine them upon
 every kind of property
 If the business man places a fictitious
 price on his goods he learns early in his
 experience that his wares will not sell. | Not so the editor; he may estimate his l productions far above their market val
 ue and continue to put them on to the
 public without any test of value-the l paper may sell for it's news and adver- | tisements.
 There has been an effort to overawe the advocates of this bill with high sounding words. There have been col
 umns upon columns of talk about rec
 ognized authorities on political econo-
 my' and .high authorities on taxation and economies" The authority who
 has been most alluded to has spun the ories until he has become an advocate
 of the proposition that real estate ought to bear all the burdens of taxation. The principal opponents of this bill
 occupy this position, but business men
 and lawyers need no theories of high
 political economists to tell them that
 the market value of a thing is not 50 or 100 per cent. more than that thing
 will sell for I do not care what wise acres authority enunciates the theory that he can pull himself over the fence by his boot straps. I do not believe it until see it done
 Why should real estate in New Haven be assessed for more than it's market value when the same law applies to personal property, and personal prop erty is assessed at no more than it's market value? Is a share of stock which cost a hundred dollars five years ago, and to-day will sell for only fifty dollars, assessed for what it cost or for fifty dollars? Is a horse that cost $500 five years ago, but would now sell for only S150, assessed for $500 or for $50? And yet some of the opponents of this bill start with the position that piece l of land ought to be assessed now at | what the owner hopes to get for it af- ter he has paid taxes and interest on it | for five or ten years to come. Such a principle would not be seriously consid l cred on any other kind of property, yet the law is the same.
 Then, if there is house on the land, they add to the fictitious and prospec- tive value of the land the full cost of building the house. I do not know how 1t Is elsewhere, but in New Haven a house and lot that cost $9,000 will sell for, say, s600O.
 Now is it compliance with the law to assess such place at the cost of build ing plus the cost of the land? Is there anything in the statute that considers cost of building as basis of assess nent?
 MT. Rowe presented.a a list of actual cases of over assessments that are proved to be such by actual sales since he assessment took place, and, contin- ling, said:
 MT. Chairman and Gentlemen-The leed of this remedy in New Haven is great and urgent. Thousands of our ,itizens would be benefited by this law. No one would be obliged to use it un- esS he wished. No one would be de- | ,rived of any existing method of relief 1 t can wrong nobody in New Haven or II the state, because under it no reduc- ion can be made beyond the present market value" and such reduction . very taxpayer is entitled to under the xisting law. This law Will simply $ ompel compliance with the present i statutes.
 It may be said that we ought to !. lave judicious assessors and boards of g elief. Do not punish us for not having i uch. We are punished enough already. 2 Ne will try to obtain such. Until we 6 To obtain them give us this remedy, t nd if we should get infallible boards of : ssessors and relief this law will then l emain unused upon theSstatute books i ntil such a time as history repeats it. e elf and we again allow unjust assess t nents to be made and we need such t emedy. In the meantime it will be | ilent but strong and constant influence e I prevention of such oyer-valuation. a