The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-07-27
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL.
ISSUED Thursday, One Dollar "A Year
RAILRoAD TAXATION.

The situation on Capitol Hill, which
has been queer for long time, has
now become confused The deliberative
faculty has been abandoned for that
which thrives best on elimination and
reorimination. 1t may be that 1t is the
Inevitable consequence of an endless
legislature or it may be that the heat
ed atmosphere creates runaway BRAIN
storms. 1t is all yet to be explained,
though In the meantime the logic of
events has certainly turned UP pref
~ muss, with the power Of the New
York, New Haven and Hartford Rail
road company in the General Assem-
bly, under bitter discussion. We are at
q loss to know where it will all end.
The cause Of the outbreak in the SEN
alto Thursday is to be attributed to a
resolution under discussion which had
for its purpose the investigation of the
States method Of taxation as it relates
to the New Haven Railroad Company
Whistler the suspicion is a reasonable
one or not that the railroad giant pays
dnto the treasury of the State less in
proportion than the plgmies among us
we cannot say because we do not know.
1t certainly does not follow that be-
cause the railroad giant is the largest
taxpayer 1t is the fairest. If we were
to- accept any such philosophy we
should have to constantly concede to
the men Of much property more con-
sideration than is given men of little
property, while usually the man with
the little bundle is known to find es-
cape from a full rate of taxation ex-
trenely difficult. There is therefore no
particular reason for the railroad get
ting hot under the collar because some
legislator or other believes that in or
der 10 remove all suspicion from the
minds of men an impartial investiga-
ton should be undertaken. There is
less reason for the legislative agents
of the railroad making determined
stand against such an investigation,
directing the legislative forces from
convenient side room supposed to be
reserved for the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Of
the State, because such eagerness.
while 1t may be bred in the Hottest Of
motives, does, in view of the history
of the State as written in the past, GER
tainly by railroad legislative agents,
provoke a quite unnecessary suspicion
that there is something somewhere
concealed.
We take it to be true that the New
Haven Railroad Company has not this
winter used improper or corrupt means
to make Its power felt; that its wish
is to DO everything 1t can do to carry
out President MeIlens promise to visit
the legislature with clean hands. We
CO1LIdTX
true, and yet just such controversies as
broks out in the senate Thursday on
account Of railroad influence make di-
rect for confusion Of mind It was
railroad pressure which provoked the
row; railroad pressure exerted to de-
feat the resolution calling for an in
vestigation of tax methods, superin-
duced by an editorial in the columns
of the Hartford Courant in which the
sincerity of it's advocates was openly
questioned. Men may be stubborn and
they may be inclined to suspect where
tfey should trust, but men are at the
same time so constituted that they
find their suspicious aroused when they
see unusual power used to defeat what
appears to them to be a fishing Of no
Importance whatever if there are no
fish In the waters of investigation. The
best friends the railroad company has
in the public and on the press find II
difficult, not to use a stronger term,
to reconcile such feverish anxiety to
defeat a possible and probably harm
less resolution with complete absence
of cause 1t may be matter of con-
sequence to the railroad that its repu-
tation for integrity shall not be at
tackled in public, but that would ap-
pear to us to be insignificant in its
consequence compared with the effort
put forth to defeat an inquiry into tax
methods, which of itself is perfectly
proper if the State of Connecticut
wishes to make it. The creator is pre-
sumably greater than It's creature.
Simple man still thrlves on the old
saw that it is the hit bird that fiutters,
and IT is not his fault that he believes
in this instance that the railroad bird
was hit.
AS to the question of veracity be-