Arizona republican., 1905-08-15
THE CONTEST BEGINS
Board of Equalization. Laboring with
 Hines and Railroads.

The August meeting of the territor- ! ial board of equalization was begun | yesterday. with all the members pres
 ent-Auditor Hill, Prank II. Parker. John Y. Wood, A. s. Donau, i Charles Solomon and Charles w. Bowman. The only business at i the morning session was to organize and fix the terrltol ial rate, which is the same as that of last year, go cents on each $100 of valuation Under the new law the territorial aud itor had made TeQuisitIun on The su- ! pervisors of all counties to furnish copies of the duplicate tax roll. Such copies had been received from all the counties except Maricopa, Yavapai and Gila. An arrangement had been made by the first two named to fur nish copies of the duplicate roll itself and 50 avoid the considerable expense
 of preparing copies which the legis-
 lature did not appear to have taken
 into consideration; at any rate, it
 made no provision for meeting the ex- pense of the preparation.
 This meeting had been looked for
 ward to as a possibly stormy one. in
 which an effort would be made to in crease the valuation of many of the
 larger mines in the territory. notably
 A
 company. the Detroit Copper company,
 the United Verde, and the Bisbee
 p.operties. Though this matter has
 not yet been reached in the regular
 course of business, the subject was
 really taken up yesterday afternoon.
 Assistant District Attorney Pattee of YaVapai county appeared before the
 board urging all increase of the prop
 erty of the United Verde from $S50,
 0O0 to some equitable figure which he
 did nos suggest; it is said, though, that
 the amount he had in mind was about S5,CO0 000 He spoke at length of the copper industry at Jerome and
 the great value of Senator CIarN's mine Attorney General Clark also addressed the board in support of a heavier assessment of mining proper ties in the territory.
 Among the other speakers was County Assessor John J. Birdno of Graham, who came here for the pur- pose of having the board of eQualiZa- tion restore his valuations of the De t. oft Copper company and the Ari- zoua Copper company's mines. He presented a lot of figures and data with reference to those properties, and among them was q report of the pro ccediugs before the board of equaiiza- ton of Graham county, which cut down his valuation of these and other mines. lie began to read a statement made by General Manager Veitch Of the Arizona Copper company before the board Colonel NJ. J. Egan, repre- senting the company. objected to the reading of the statement on the ground first, that Mir. Neitch never made it. and also on the ground that he should have been summoned and eiven his day in the investigation. The statement. however, was allowed 10 go in This was followed by MT. Birdno with a report made by General Manager Veitch to the Scotch stock holders of the company He called at tention to the alleged variance between the statement and the report. He did not explain now he procured the state
 ment It is q printed document. and it is said that it was procured In Scotland.
 All the proceedings of the afternoon were more or less informal, and at the conclusion of the addresses an ad- iournment was taken until this morn ing. ' is believed that the question of -aising the assessments of mines and railroads will come up in earnest to- day. There is one thing yet to be de- termined. and that is the jurisdiction of the board in this matter-its right to review the action of the county boards in making the assessments That was spoken of by some of the members in the course of the argu- ments yesterday and will be passed upon today before further action is taken. There is also another question to be settled. and that is the night of the board to review or reconsider any action it may have taken at the June meeting in reference to railroad Vaiu- ations. Among other gentlemen before the board were Hon. T. c. Norris, Hon. Ie Roy Anderson, representing the United Verde railroad, and Superin- tcudaut Russell of that road.