Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1907-10-25
MARYLAND
TAX QUESTION
BY Taghman Harvey.

OSdl OIL SEE III 1 ne OelaWdIedu OF
to-day as to why taxes are higher in
Caroline County under local option
than in Delaware under license. l say
in the first place, this is not caused
by prohibitlSn or local option. Ii you
do not believe what l say please write
to Mr.. Pliny Fisher, Mr. Henry R
Lewis, Mr. Willard Thawley or Mr..
Joseph Bernard, Denton, Maryland;
anyone of them or all of them will
tell you the same, that it is not caused
by local option. l do not know much
about county or state affairs but
know enough to prove that local OPP
ton has nothing to do with taxes be-
ing high in Caroline County, and it
will not take long to prove it either.
Caroline County is spending thous-
ands of dollars in improvements this
year. 1t has built one of the best jails
in the State, lined with steel, with
steel cages to put prisoners in, one of
the best jails you ever saw; also a new
concrete bridge over the Choptank
River, a new almshouse, and the
county is spending twice as much
money on the roads than before local
option. It is trying to make the roads
better, spends several thousand dollars
every year making hard, solid roads,
something on the order of macadam.
It is doing away with wooden bridges
and using vitrified sewer pipe for road
calverts, which costs several times
more than wooden bridges, and we
have a road engineer ut a large salary,
a good man for the place. You see
we are having a good many improve
ments, three times as many as before
local option.
I have told about a part of the vast
number of the improvements being
made in Caroline County. This
County is not standing still, but going
ahead of most any other county in the
state.
There is one thing in Caroline
County which makes considerable eX-
pense that Kent County, Delaware,
does not have. It is the Choptank
River running through the county,
which causes quite a number of large
bridges. There are six large bridges,
four of them draw bridges, and a
bridge keeper has to be employed to
attend each one. Some of the bridges
have a wide marsh to causeway, some
of them a fifth to a fourth Of mile
long, which makes it very expensive. |
The county had t6 build large bridge
across the Tuckahoe Creek, and they
are talking about putting a new iron
bridge across the river at Denton,
which will cost a largo sum of money.
When I mentioned the new concrete
bridge at Greensboro, built this year,
l forgot to say it cost $4,000 for the
bridge, and there is about mile of !
gravel road. The cost of all this, with
the new Jail and the new county or
will be quite an extra eX-
Dense for this year. The total cost Of /
the. county roads and repairing bridges
for the year 1866 was nearly $4,000; |
[ think the expense $17,926.16.
You see there are quite lot Of i'm
going on in Caroline
County. You do not wonder at taxes
being high, do you, now that have
named so many improvements?
The saloon advocates make a great
blow about speakeasies fourishing in
ocal option towns, and costing the
county a vast sum OF money Prosecut-
ng the speskeasy fellows. do not
believe it costs one cent on the hunA
lred dollars in Caroline County. Any
,ody who does not believe this can
write to Mr.. PliDy Fisher or Mr..
Henry Lewis, and I think that they
will say the same.
It looks as if l had said enough to ]
onvince you that the high tax rate is
lot caused by local option 1t GER {
ainly does look as if had said enough
o convince almost anybody, yet | {
ave hardly commenced. l have told {
My one side; now am going to tell 1
omething that viii make saloon ad- a
COATES wish they had never mention /
j the matter. X
They only look at one side, at the t
Ugh tax, but there are two sides to
most everything. There is one side Ii
, this matter that they don't know n
uch about. They look at the high v
tie, s1.21 on the 500 for school tax, W
,ogress in wealth, enlightment and p
,unty tax and State tax, altogether, N
i'd it looks very big, but the high rate al
tax is caused by an extremely low W
tie Of assessment. This assessment W
as made eleven years ago, when land IL
as the lowest in value I ever knew al
in my life. There was a piece of hi
ne timber land on the county house Dc