The Sauk Centre herald., 1909-04-29

If paid by the farmer, as we believe
in the last analysis will be found to
be the fact, it imposes an additional
burden on an industry already over
taxed. If paid by the consumer it
is tax en- bread, the most iniquitous
form of taxation that can be imposed.
For one thing is quite assured it will
not be paid by the elevator companies.
Either they will collect it from the
farmer in the reduction in some way
in the price of tho grain or they will
pass it on to the man who eats the
bread made from the wheat. The
former method will unquestionably
be employed to shift the burden. 1t
is a significant circumstance that the
very men who vera the most outraged
when it was proposed to impose tax
on iron ore, which the steel trust
would have to pay, were themost an
xious to saddle the load of this tax
on gain on the farmers back.
Much is being made of the fact that
the tax levy for state purposes will
this year be reduced. Credit for this
is clrimed by the committee on appro-
priations. An examination of the
provisions of neither the omnibus bill
nor Of the so-called pork-barrel bill
warrants this conclusion. Against
the extension of state aid to the con-
struction and improvement of the
public roads and bridges l have moth
ing to say. 1t seems to me an emf
nently proper purpose to which to put
a portion of the public revenues. But
l believe that when money is spent by
the state it should be expended under
the supervision of the officers of the
state in a proper way. When the
state undertakes to build roads it
should build good roads under the su-
pervision of competent engineers.
Farmed out as the money voted in the
pork-barrel bill is to Tom, Dick and
Harry, and it's expenditure in many
instances left to politicians who will
use it for the manufacture of politi-
Cal capital, it is much more than
questionable whether from the $500,
600 voted by the state the roads and
bridges of the state will be benefited
100000 worth. l do not believe that
the states money should be used to
improve the main streets of incor-
porated towns and villages as is pro-
vided in the pork-barrel bill. If this
appropriation is to be continued pro-
vision should be made for the proper
safeguarding of the states interest
and the economical and effective ex-
penditure of the public moneys and a
report thereon. The peoples repre-
sentatives have no right to vote away
public money without providing every
necessary safeguard to insure that it
shall be properly spent. This is not
done in the pork-barrel bill.
AS to the omnibus appropriation bill
it is subject to the grave objection
that advantage was taken of it to ac-
complish purposes which could not
have been effected if they had been
submitted to the legislature on their
merits. refer here particularly to
the creation of. new officers and the
Increases made in salaries. While in
all departments the extent to which
this in done is unprecedented, the
most important and unwarrantable
increase is made in the salaries of the
railroad and warehouse commissioners,
an increase to which, if properly sub
mitted by bill in the regular way, the
legislature would never have consent
ed. One steal of this kind has invita-
bly, led to another. Those who sought
to have the salaries of the railroad
commissioners increased were obliged,
in order to secure the favor, to con-
sent to other raids on the public trea-
sury and to grating propositions of
various kinds in which members il
one or the other branch Of the legisla-
ture had az personal interest. In this
way claims were paid which the claims
committee had disallowed, md the
tri-county delegation was able TO i'm.