The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-03-12
SHALL PEOPLE PAY TAXES OR
SHALL BONDS BE ISSUED?

State.
And yet there are those in North Car
DINA who are criticizing the Legislature
because 1t did not issue enough bonds to
pay off the deficit in the treasury and il.
addition authorize million dol
lar bond issue. They believe that
the State ought to change its
policy of an hundred years and add
to the institutions by bequeathing a debt
to posterity instead Of by a just enforce
ment of tax laws, raise enough money TO
make the necessary improvements year
by year.
Since the Democrats returned to power
after Reconstruction millions of dollars
have been raised by taxation to build
the insane asylums at Morganton and
Goldsboro, to build the Normal and In
dustrial College and the A. and M. Col
lege for. each race, to build the costly
State Prison, to build the Deaf, Dumb and
Blind Institution for the negroes at Raj
eigh, establish the deaf and dumb school
for white children at Morganton and add
to the institution for the blind white
nor's Mansion, Supreme Court building,
buy the Agricultural Department build
ings, and to keep all the institutions in
repair-all these things have been paid
for out of the public revenues, and at a
time when the wealth of the State was
much less than it is today. And yet, for
the first time, the State is compelled to
issue $500 900 of bonds to the public and
500, 900 to the permanent school fund to
meet its expenses and pay it's floating
debts. 1t is well known that this debt
was contracted in part to pay for fusion
mis-rule, to increase accommodations for
the insane, to increase pensions for Con-
federate soldiers, and for schools.
The Legislature did right to pay the
debt by a bond issue and stop right
thar" and to provide the machinery for
the assessment and collection of taxes,
which il carried out by local, county and
State officials, will raise enough revenue
to pay the expenses of government. If
all the fine buildings erected between 1872
and 1894 were paid for out Of the public
revenues, it is absurd to say that per-
manent improvements and additions must
now be provided from bond issues. If in
the States poverty it collected enough
revenue to build the Morganton Hospital
and other institutions, and it can not
with the increased wealth raise enough
to make necessary improvements-the
there is something radically wrong that
must be remedied.
big bond issue would make tax
lodging easier. See? A big bond issue
would enable tax assessors and tax col
lectors to wink at small assessments and
to break? big bond issue would enable
railroads and other quasi public corpora
tfons to escape with fifty per cent val
uation in the assessment for taxes Is
it not clear enough now?
The stories of wealth, of prosperity, OF
increased prosperity of North Carolina,
that the papers of this State have been
printing are false, or there is too much
tax lodging. What is needed in North
Carolina, is not resort to the Hamil
tonian policy of going in debt, but the
Jefferson policy of paying as you go. and
of compelling all property, individual and
corporate, to pay its just share of the
burdens of government instead of SHIFT
ing those burdens upon posterity.
In certain town in North Carolina
a lawyer was asked if he was in favor
of certain bond issue that had been
to the people. Here was his
reply-and it points moral:
"Of course | am in favor of the bond
issue at five per cent. l am then in
favor of a bond issue to pay the interest
on the bonds as it becomes due. When
the bonds mature am in favor of renew
ing the bonds at four per cent, and
borrowing money to pay the interest.
When those bonds mature, | am in favor
of renewing them at three per cent and
of borrowing the money to pay the in
terest. When they mature / am in favor
of issuing bonds at two per cent to re-
new them and of issuing bonds to pay
the interest as it falls due. And l am
IN favor of keeping up this process for
all time until the Day of Judgment, and
then all the bonds will be blotted out
and we shall have enjoyed the proceeds
without ever having paid a single cent"
The bond issue authorized by the Leg
islature was necessary, and its necessity
does not reflect upon the Legislatures of
1901 or of 1908, or upon any public off,
Gals. No assessment of propefty~~has
been made in four years, but this year
all property will be assessed for taxation
III the rule that what property is worth