The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-10-12
WILSON SHOWS THAT REPUBLICANS INTEND
 TO MAKE STATE TAX
 ONTOWNS PERMANENT
(Continued from Page one.)


 that some of his ancestors had been born in Stratford, saying, T am es- pecia1ly pleased to be invited to speak to the men of Stratford because here, more than two centuries ago, came the Widow William Curtiss, with her two sons, John and William. From that lusty blood, upon my mothers side. am I sprung. The men and women of that stock intermarried with most of the old settlers here and for a great many decades reared large families. I was looking at the Curtis book to-day, and noticed that some of those an cient townsmen of yours had chill dren in a family and some had l2 and some had 19 and one had 23.
 There was no race suicide in those days
 those of to-day, who rear smaller fam flies. because in the old time every a blessing. Every boy was an asset.
 The high cost of living had not ar rived.
 "But nowadays it is different. Many | families are so situated that each ar irving little one makes a sad drain 1 upon the purse of it's father and mother, and the problem of it's future | is not so easy to solve-
 Part of the reason,'' continued MT. i Wilson, flor the high cost of living is i that taxation is unfairly laid. The cost of running the countryahas been placed upon the homes and upon the farms and upon the least wealthy persons l individuals.
 When the embattIed farmers fired ! the shot that was heard around the world the men of this town let go the handles of the p1owl took down the rifle, and went out to fight unjust taxa l tion.
 l Having conquered in the fight, they returned to their farms. little guessing | that time would come when their 1 descendants would be more unjustly l taxed, with representation. than ever their sires had been, without represen- l tation''
 i MT. Wilson then directed attention 1 to the fact that Congressman Hill. in 1 addressing the Hartford convention had undertakenito outline not only the policy of the Republican leaders in the nation, but also in the state.
 Continued MT. Wilson,: MT. Hill in his speech, which have in my hand, i in a little pamphlet which he has been good enough to send me, has been i taxatio which will not be welcome. 'EHe tells us, after boasting of the | fiscal policy of the Republican machine of which he is so important a part, that the direct state tax on the towns is to be a. permanent fixture.
 He tells us that the half mill tax has been laid during the past two years, for the first time in many years, is to be always with us, to be an additional burden for the homes and the farms and the plain people to bear.
 Tt is an humble little paragraph, and one needs to read it carefully to get it's meaning. I will read the par agraph to you. Here it is, just as MT. Hill said it:
 The policy: of the State with ref
 erence to highway improvements
 will probably compel some addi-
 tions to this debt (the State debD
 in the future, but the reimposition
 of the direct tax on the towns
 which will provide an additional.
 income of nearly half a million
 dollars annually, WILL NOT
 INTEREST, BUT IN. TIME WILL ExTTNGUISH THE PRINCIPLE
 AS WELL.
 So you see, gentlemen. that the created in the last three four years, and which he says is to be much l larger, is to be paid. principle and in terest. by a direct tax upon the towns i
 Now I am not opposed to good | roads. I believe we should have more 1 of them, and not less, and that they | should be built even more rapidly than | they have been built.
 But the money to build good roads 1 should be raised fairly and so as to impose the burden most upon those most able to bear the burden:
 But if the money to build roads and pay the debt is raised by State l it will not be fairly raised The | State tax is not just tax. If it | were, and the State needed the money | there could be no legitimate opposition to it.
 T say to you that there are mill | lions upon millions of dollars of prop 1 erty in Connecticut much undertaxed, l when compared with homes and l / farms which bear most of the direct i State tax.
 Such property is the property of the trolley monopolies, and of the 1 railroad monopoly and of the tele- phone monopoly
 these monopolies has been taken from | taxation in the towns where it is To- coated and the state undertakes to tax it and value it for taxation.
 If the States va1ution were full and if the tax rate imposed were fair. and if the money were neces- tion.
 'tBut the State underwriters these rate than homes and farms and such property is ordinarily taxed. And this is not fair.
 '.The very trolley road that runs by your door is part of such a prop erty. The company that owns this trolley road makes oath to the rail- more than $32,ooo.ooo But the State fixes the valuations at only about 2O,0Oo00o and the 1evies a tax rate of but one per cent. The direct tax upon towns could have been avoided by levying the ordinary rate of, say 15 mills, upon this one property at
 "A very small addition to the rate paid by these monopolies if levied against them all would have made the direct tax on the towns unneces- sary.
 'sNor is this all. At the time of the last report to the Federal govern ment upon this subject the manufac- turing esta blishments of Connecticut | had a valuation as fixed by them selves of $373, 900 900. And this large amount of property paid in taxes, ex- elusive of internal revenue taxes, 1 scarcely more than s per thousand. where the ordinary farm and the us- ua1 home paid from $15 to $17 or even SIS a thousand.
 "A very small rate upon $373, 900 900 would have made the State tax on