The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-02-18

that eloquent and wise men could be found to dispute the law of gravitation if any advantage would thereby corAe to them. It is not strange, therefore, that the 20 year water contract has defenders as competent and as learned as City Auditor, Heating. who has broken the silence of almost four years in an effort to justify that much criti- else d instrument.
 The greatest service that a man can do truth is to state it plain ly, and the second greatest service he can do a truth is to tell the untruth about it plainly
 MT. Keating's defense has at least the merit of clearness. Its mass of figures reduces to two main claims in support of the contract, as follows:
 l. He says that under the con- tract the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company pays more taxes than it did.
 2. He says that under the con- tract the city and it's inhabitants get water as cheaply as any other city is supplied by a private cor .poration.
 As to the first claim, it is diff cult to see how MT. Keating's con- tract could assist the city in taxing the company. The taxing power is derived from the constitution and the statutes of the State and covers all property subject to mu- nicipal burdens.
 The contract does not help the city tax the company. but inpedes the operation of the law. for it is provided that if the city takes more than so much in taxes. it shall pay the rest back to the com pany.
 Upon it's very face this is an evil provision. It is intended to cover up the value of the property, and to conceal the price that is actual ly paid for the commodity.
 But if MT. Heating says it is not an evil provision, but a good pro- vision, will he, as City Auditor, recommend the extension of the principle to all contracts with the municipality?
 Instead of buying goods for cash let us buy them part for cash and part for tax rebates. Let us ex- <I,s ment of MT. Keating's own salary, agreeing with him to pay him some money and, additionally. a quiet little arrangement to undervalue his property.
 If any man says that this clause is a good clause in the contract, don't argue with him, search him.
 But MT. Heating seems to feel that in some inscrutable way he and the contract are responsible for the fact that the valuation of the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company was increased.
 Not so. That job was done by the Board of Relief. in 1906, upon
 
 Lynn W. Wilson and others from the action of the Board of Asses sors.
 To reduce the valuation of this property below the amount upon the assessors books, challenged successfully the courage even of the franers of such a bargain.
 It is probable that the actual value of the company's property for taxation is $3,000O00, which means, roughly speaking. that it enjoys a rebate of the tax on 3D., 000000, which in the present year will amount to about s34,0oO.
 MT. Heating is referred to his report, recommending the contract, which is printed in the year book for 1906, in which he says if the city wishes to buy the property it will have to pay s6,O00,OO0. P. 371)
 And yet, apparently, he sees nothing incongruous in the fact that a property which he says is WOEtI SO,VUU,UUU lO Duy IS WOIII1 puL little more than $1,OO0,0Oo to tax.
 But MT. Heating has a defense for the inclusion of the tax eXeTnp- tion clause. He says that other people did it before his time. AS a lawyer he is doubtless able to estimate such an extenuation at it's real value. A man will be tried and convicted for killing his wife, though he urges ever so tearfully that other men have almost killed their wives.
 The question is not what others did. but what he did, and the other members of the committee. The men of the past may have lacked light, but not so the men who made this last contract. They couldn't read a newspaper, nor the records of the Common Council, without meeting an argument against the further exemption of the property of the water company from the regular operation of the tax laws
 But MT. Heating says that the city is getting water as cheap as any city, and that this is exactly what Bridgeport is entitled to un- der the contract with Nathaniel Greene.
 MT. Keating's exact language is as follows:
 'But it may be claimed that we are entitled to better contract still, under the provisions of the Greene prOpOsitiOn That pronosi-