The Forrest City times., 1905-01-13
Inau6uraI A Address of Gov. Dax'is

Gov. Jefferson Davis was inaugural cd for a third term at 2 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, January Il
 His inaugural address is as follows
 70 tho General Assembly:
 Each of us. you as well as myself
 have just passed through one of the
 most bitter partisan campaigns that has ever been witnessed in our state l Necessarily each of you. to some extent | participated in this campaign. imbib- | ing it's feeling and bitterness, and re- | joicing at or regretting its result. | We now meet, you as one department l of the government and myself repre- senting another. upon common level l and our only motive and ambition should be to do the greatest good pos l sible for the commonwealth which we | each represent For myself. the feel | ing of that campaign is ended. and l trust that each and every member oi th's honorable body will so far forget it that he may do his whole duty to his constituents, uninflueneed or un- biased by any feeling that this strife i may have engendered
 Charitable Institutions.
 I desire that the session of this leg i islature shall lee one Of affirmative good, | of affirmative work. session that can | point, as a result of it's labors. to some | thing accomplished to something done; | and in this connection I desire to rec l ommend and urge upon you the neces- | sity of making an appropriation Tor | the purpose of building permanent 1 home for the incurable insane of our state
 Reform School.
 The suggestion that I would make along this line and which l would ear nestly impress upon you is this; Au- thorize the governor to appoint three discreet citizens as a committee to buy cheap piece of land somewhere adja- cent to Little Rock. say 160 acres. cost ing not over twenty-five hundred or three thousand dollars, upon which fair crops might be raised. and place there on for the present at least, buildings to cost not oyer five thousand dollars. wooden structures being sufficient to begin with. Let these unfortunate white boys. and negroes as well, and the fallen white women be committed to this reformatory. to be managed by this board of three citizens selected by the governor they to select a super intendent and matron and necessary as- sistants. and be empowered to buy nec- essary tools and machinery and equlp- ments of every kind for the purpose or starting, in a small way and on cheap basis. a reformatory of this descrip- tion where white boys may be taught some useful occupation end the negro boys be compelled to work on the farm and support the institution while 1t is being done. This would prove bless ing. not only to the white boy, but to the negro boy as we'll
 Antitrust Legislation.
 Gentlemen the King antitrust bill must be passed by this body. You know what it is, the democracy of the state. whose servants you are. under stand it and have endorsed it. and, whether it's results are good or bad. you come here pledged and committed to pass it and cannot escape this obliga- tion by any legerdemain or game of hide and seek that may be insisted upon by the most skillful obstruction ists in this body.
 Taxation of Corporate Property
 We now come to subject, gentlemen, that has engaged my attention more riously perhaps in the last two years than any other subject. and that is, the proper mode for the taxation of corporate property We do not want to be unjust to corporations, we do not want to tax them uniustly: we want all honest. legitimate concerns to come to our state and help us to make it the greatest in the ssterhood but in order to do this it is not necessary that they escape their just proportion of the bur dens of government. Who Is it now. gentlemen, upon whose shoulders the burdens of government rest most heav- fly? I say to you. without the fear of being called a crank or demagogue. that 1t is the small property owner. whether he be a farmer, mechanic. Q day la borer. minister of the gospel or lawyer at the bar; the fellow that has nothing but a few household goods. a small piece of real estate, perhaps a little home in a town or city. or Derchance a farm In the country. with few head of stock and necessary provender for their care and keeping. pays more taxes according to the amount of property he owns than any other class of citizens we have
 Now what is the remedy I wound have you adopt for this evil? I say you should so amend the tax laws of this state that all corporate property should be returned just railroad property is returned to the railroad taxing beard of this state. composed of the auditor. secretary of state and the governor. This removes the assess ment from local influences and local surroundings and places the responst- bility upon three state officials who daro not sh!rk their duty in the proper as sessment of this character of property
 Taxation of Franchises.
 While on the subject of the proper taxation of corporate property. I beg to advi1a this honorable body that your board empowered to tax railroad prop erty mas had grave problems with which to deal in the last two assessments of railroads in this state We have dealt with that character of property as we thought fair and lEst. The railroads have complained because their taxes have complained because the basis of taxing their property has increased about twenty-nine and half million dol lars in the last four years.
 The burden of this contention seems to be that we have no specific statute in this state authorizing the taxing of their franchises. that intangible prop erty that is more valuable perhaps than the physical property of the road itself and. while our constitution provides that all property shall be subject to taxation. and while I insist that the franchise of a railroad is property un- der the meaning of this constitutional provision and property subject to be taxed yet a specific legislative declara- tion on this subject would forever set a act ion x.yhs