Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1909-08-13
ONE LONG, LOUD HOWL
OVER ASSESSMENTS
Taxpayers Tearing Hair and
Crashing Teeth.
Assessors Calm and I'm
terrified Await the
Coming Assault.

I The sound of weeping and wailing
and lamentation, and evek Of gnashing
of teeth, is heard in the land
Chief Barrow and his assistants
| have made the rounds.
In many an office and in many a
home there has been left a document
that struck terror to the soul and de-
mOralization to the family finances
The work of the assessors is now
known throughout the length and
breadth of the city.
Those who have not already been
notified of advances are shivering
with fear and holding their breath
with the hope that the assessors will
forget that they are living.
Those who have received the official
notifications of the sudden jump in
values of their properties almost wish
they were not living. Some of them
say they are going to tender their
properties to the city or the assessors
at the assessed valuations.
If the city or the assessors take tha
properties the owners will regard
their action as an evidence of good
faith, if not they will be inclined to
believe that the time has come to
fight, that the hour has struck for an
other Boston Tea Party, Lexington
Green, Concord Bridge and Bunker
Hill
Only deaf man could avoid know
ing that the storm is brewing, AMI
even the deaf and dumb man would
be doing we'll not to be made aware of
the storm of protest that is gathering
out in the suburbs and accommodating
force and energy as it rushes or to-
ward the Council chamber where the
assessors hold their sessions. ->~-
Talk about water meters, talk about
gas meters, talk about electric meters,
talk about municipal ownership Dr
Dodson cont Facts, they have all been
relegated t9 about thirty-third place
as topicfof conversation just now.
All<talk now centers about the one
hing, the single burning question. of
tax assessments.
What are they going to do with ail
the money" queried an indignant citt-
zen whose mathematical integrity had
| been brought into question by the as
SCISSORS raising his assessment a mat
ter of fifteen thousand dollars. i
say, what are they going to do with
all the money? Where does all the
| money go, anyway? Where are the
! improvements; where, where" and
| then a cooler citizen whose assessment
had only been increased a paltry $10,-
000, led him away to a soda fountain
! 10 bury his wrath i'll a dope"
How much the total increase is no.
body knows. Some men are willing
to swear it is about a million dollars
and that the city has put it all onto
their shoulders. Perhaps it isn't quite
that much, and perhaps there are tive
or three hundred citizens called upon
to stand il
The only real trouble is that they
don't GrOpuse to stand tiff they can
help it.
Talk about city officials not earning
| their salaries. Tell that to a tax as
10
suls. Each oi the trio has already
earned his 500 and now he has got
to buffet the Indignation, and angry
p1otests, and fearful pleas, and hot
denunciations, of his friends and
| neighbors and kinsfolks, he has 60.
to convert lifelong associates into
temporary enemies, be denounced as a
rObber, be Stunned as a leper-and
all because he seeks to put money.
not into his own purse, but into the
city treasury.
| The treasury needs it. 1T has a bad
habit of needing it, like all other pub
| lie treasures. There is only one wav
to get it. That way has been adopted.
Assessments have got to come closer
up to the actual values. Some of the
| difference between what The citizen
returns lis property for and what he
would sell it for has got to be bridg-
ed. So say the assessors. And so tne
fight is on.
1t takes money to run city govern
ment, even when there are no great
public improvements under way. AS
Americus gets larger and more met
ropolitan it's income must grow. The
tax rate can't be made any higher, the
sources of income are necessarily linn
tied, and so the assessors have got to
take the bull by the horns and in the
performance of their sworn duty put
an elevator under many returns and
life them up toward the twentieth
story.
But, oh, my! The kicking! The
shoe dealers and the cobblers GER
tainly have busy times ahead for
them. But after the kicking is all
over the city will be in possession of
a substantial increase in it's gross as
sessments, the discontented will de-
eide that life, after all, is yet worth
living, no property will be thrown on
the market at the assessed values and
the town will wag on until next year
and its annual reassessment strikes
terror into manly breasts once more.
|
NOTICE.