The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1911-03-31
About The fall NIGH Takes Out of Magyar

Under the box car head, M Gill
Takes Fall Out OF Magyar" the Wenat-
chez World in the issue of Monday
prints an article signed by Peter NJ Gill,
in which that gentleman takes ex-
ceptions to an editorial which appeared
in last weeks Echo in regard to the
remission Of the $4,000 tax due the
state and county on the bridge recently
sold to the state for SIPS, 900.
Mr.. M'Gill is a man of mature years,
and impressed the writer of these lines
in a brief conversation with him some
two months ago as man Of over aver
age intelligence.
1t required just one column OF space
in which to tell why the bridge tax
should not be paid. Now if Mr.. NIGHTS
argument convinced a single disin-
terested taxpayer we have not been
able to find him. Just to show how
untenable his position is that portion of
his-shall we miss-name it argument
dear reader, you shall be the judge Of
what it is. Read it:
May I refer to an article in the
World of Saturday, entitled, Deed
Magyar on the Bridge Taxes" in which
Mr.. Magyar opposes the remission OF
taxes assessed against the Wenatchee
bridge. incidentally you quote with
approval Mr.. Mayors opinion that the
raising OF money for purposes of pub
licity outranks most other considerations
in importance. Well, no doubt pub
licity is a good thing as far as it goes.
But may not even publicity be over
done if it is not backed up by concrete
tangible enterprises that make produc-
ton and exchange possible; and I af-
firm without any hesitation that the
erection of the bridge in question has
done as much to stimulate and pro-
mote the developing of the Wenatchee
valley, as a whole, as most of the mon
ey she has so freely spent up to date
for socalled publicity purposes.
The article states: 1t was designed
and built to convey water across the
Columbia river to irrigate between 5000
and 1000 acres Of land" Well if it
accomplished that purpose it was, in
deed, an enterprise of philanthropy"
whether or not it was so intended by
its promoters. But it did more than
that. 1t enabled the people who set
led on this irrigated land to be as close
ly in touch with the business houses Of
Wenatchee as if no natural barrier in
tervened. 1t enabled them to bring
the products of their ranches into
Wenatchee and exchange them for the
products carried in stock by Wenatchee
merchants. Thus production and ex
change were stimulated and the value
OF every acre of land in the Wenatchee
valley was directly or indirectly enhanc-
ed. Indeed, so far as the other side
of the river is concerned, the erection
of this bridge was the only thing that
made production over there possible.
Would all the publicity" so much
lauded by Mr.. Magyar have conveyed
one drop Of water across the river for
purposes of irrigation? And without
irrigation is it not obvious that the 9TH
er side of the river would today be a
desert waste? Was not the bridge in
effect public enterprise and was it
not virtually, if not absolutely, turned
over to the public for the use of the
public? I am not familiar with all
the details, but this is my understand
ing of the matter. 1t is alleged that it
was a land improving enterprise as if
that was something against it. But if
any man can point out any enterprise
that involves the expenditure Of capital
and the employment Of labor that does
not have the effect Of increasing the
value of land, whether so intended or
not, l will be obliged to him. This
bridge had none OF the elements of
"unearned increment" about it. 1t
sprung into existence not as an impal-
pable publicity dream, but by the
expenditure of capital and the sweat
and toll of labor. Had the bridgs COM
pany, after its completion, flung a sys-
tenn of toll gates across it, and levied
a tax on the public for its use, it would
have been quite proper to levy
tax upon it. But inasmuch as it
was maintained as a public highway I
contend that at no time was this bridge
any more rightly subject to taxation
than was the Columbia river that flowed
beneath it.
This question of taxation is impor-
tant. 1t is not the slovenly, loose,
Ar,,ictah r,rnnnsitinn the avhraua citizen