The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1911-03-31
FRIDAY, MARCH 81, 1917

thinks it is. The mode Of taxation and
the thing taxed is, in fact, more impor-
tant than the amount levied.
Any tax that has a tendency to
check production should not be resort
ed to- All taxes upon manufactures,
all taxes upon commerce, all taxes up
on capital and Improvements, are OF
this kind. What then can be said in
favor of taxing bridge that the public
was permitted to use as freely as they
are permitted to use the waters OF the
Columbia river? If Wenatchee is to
become the distributing point for the
greater Inland Empire, Of which she is
the center, we shall have to revise our
ideas of taxation.
Surely it must be obvious that the
best way to encourage enterprise is not
to tax the life out of it. Let US make
a start in the right direction by remit
ting the taxes on the Wenatchee bridge.
Mr.. NIGHTS story is so vulnerable,
so entirely void Of anything convincing,
that it is astonishing that the World
gave it space.
The bridge was built just as the
Great Northern railroad was built thru
the arid, uninhabited sage brush desert,
as business enterprise. Long before
the road was completed people began
to come into the Wenatchee valley and
take up land, cultivate it, plant orch
ards, plan irrigation bitches, and even
began to collect at the place now called
Wenatchee. Because the building OF
the railroad was followed by develop
ment will Mr.. M'Gill contend that the
railroad company should have its taxes
RENTED? The Great Northern Rail-
road Company furnished the money to
buy the land across the river from We
natchee. The Great Northern Railroad
Company built the bridge across the Co
lumbia river (see files of the Wenat-
chez World of 19O5) to convey water
to the land it bought for from SIS to
$45 per acre and sold for $500 to $500
per acre, or a total profit of several
hundred thousand dollars, not to take
into account the $125, 900 received for
the bridge. That the bridge and the
land company was little circle inside
of the Great Northern circle was known
and talked about among even the chill
dren of Wenatchee, and repeatedly re-
ferred to by the newspapers six years
ago.. Mr.. M'Gill should make his
sympathy broad enough to extend to
the people who paid a good round price
for the land they made productive, not
the railroad or bridge company, and
who have every year paid their taxes
without murmur, and will continue to
pay them, tho they may not get in ten
years as much profit off the land as the
bridge or railroad company got in few
months. Mr.. NJ Gill, why not advo-
cate the remission OF their taxes? 1t
is possible that they may find it as diff
cult to pay taxes assessed against their
land as the poor bridge or railroad
company contends it is to pay the
taxes on the bridge.
We can find no fault with the rail-
road company for making few hun
bred thousand dollars on the side out
of that bridge enterprise. 1t was fortu
nate enough to have the ready money
to put an enterprise of that kind thru.
Peter and the writer have no cause to
complain because they did not have
the ready cash. At least the writer is
not disposed to cry about it. Why our
friend Peter should jump into the
breech and cry aloud about few paltry
thousand dollars-perhaps l per cent
of the profit on the transaction-is
more than mystery.
Come now, Peter, why did you let
them get you into this untenable posi-
ton? You are square plug and can
not fill round hole.
II Mr.. M'Gill had declared himself
against government we. could readily
understand why he is opposed to the
bridge tax. But favoring government,
we cannot understand why he is opposed
to the bridge tax. 1t requires money
to pay for the benefits Of government.
Taxation is the method our government