Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-02-05
Public Opinion on Iowa Subjects
as Reflected in the Iowa
Newspapers.
The News of Iowa From Hun.
dreds Of Different Towns
end Communities.
TAXES FOR RAILROADS.
dubuque Times.]

Dubuque liHleS.J
Senator Blnnchards bill extending 10
electric inter,lrban railways the present
law authorizing townships, towns or
cities to vote taxes In aid of steam rail-
roads should pass The objections urged
lin Wednesdays debate have no force
whatever. If the authority proposed
already exists no harm can come, and
controversy can be avoided by estap-
fishing the fact beyond doubt. Dis
Termination against electric and in ia
vor of steam roads is indefensible. The
people should have the right of choice.
Undoubtedly the people in this or that
section in the past have made some un-
fortunate investments in railways, but
this is not material unless it is proposed
to contend that they are unfit to decide
for themselves whether railroad
would benefit their community or not.
II would indeed be unjust to permit
non property owners to impose taxa
ton in aid of railroad enterprises upon
property owners, but the law of Iowa
permits nothing of the kind. The peo-
pie are not permitted to vote on a prop
osition for tax aid to railway COM
pany until q. petition for an election,
signed by a rna jority of the freeholders
has been presented to the city council
or board of township trustees 1t is
possible that the law might be i'm
proved by substituting the secret ballot
for the petition, by giving the freehold
er voting power proportioned to his
recorded tax reliability. and by making
the decision of the freeholders final.
However, Senator Listers proposition
that the whole law should be repealed
is practically proposition that local
option should be withdrawn from the
people because they are unfit to exer-
else it. Senator Crossley declared him
self opposed to the bill Because the
day of voting taxes to railroads of any
kind is past; because the franchises are
sufficient to give to corporations, and
the last are too much; because trolley
lines will make the towns of the state
| merely suburbs of the larger cities; be-
cause the roads could carry the cleo
tons for the tax by spending small
part of what they would receive to do
1t: because IL 1t will pay the corpora
tons to build they will build anyway:
because the corporations will interest
prominent local men to help carry the
tax in their own localities against the
interests of their localities and at the
cost of the small taxpayer and small
town of the state" If all this were true
Il might supply reason why the tax
payers of every community should be
ruled by an oligarchy sitting at Des
Moines and denied the right to spend
their own money according to their
own discretion, but 1t could furnish no
| Justification for discrimination in favor
OF steam roads.
The fact is that the people. the mer-
chants and the farmers want the inter-
urban trolley lines. They may be mis-
| taken in believing that these lines will
lot come unless tax aid is voted, or in
their belief that they will furnish COM
petition for the steam roads and that
competition will help the farmer and
the merchant, but they are entitled to
have an opinion in the matter and to
back their judgment with their own
money.