The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-17
THE UNJUST TAX

HE UNJUSl lAA
Never did a just demand upon the
General Assembly receive more time
ly expression than Mayor Buckingham
has given in his exposure of the max
ed and impudent iniquity Of the State
tax, laid in the State two years ago,
for the first time in 10 years. In its
incipency. the State tax was probably
a fair tax, just as government by the
representation of towns originally
worked with a considerable degree Of
justice. But many things have chang
ed in the last quarter of a century,
Just as population has concentrated
in the cities until the system Of repre-
sentation has become a mere travesty
of popular government, so property
has centered in the hands Of great
corporations. A fiscal system has been
designed which reaches the property
Of the smaller kind, owned by the
humber classes of men as fully as
could be desired. But by gross dis
obedience too law. or by the creation
Of laws carefully written to exempt
large interests from paying an equit-
able share of the cost of government,
great properties are almost entirely
exempt, or pay but a fraction Of what
is demanded by the precepts OF equal
taxation.
Connecticut is a. manufacturing
State. 1t is made so by the skill
and energy Of her surprising citizen
workmen, the great body Of home
owners in cities and large towns.
But by direct and general disobedi-
ence to law it is literally true that
the owners of the great manufacture
ing property throughout the State are
not paying in taxation a sum equal to
one half of one per cent upon the ac-
tual value of what they have as the
owners have reported it to the Census
authorities Of the United States.
This situation is partly created by
wholesale disobedience to law by town
the tax laws are drawn so as to make
it practically impossible to reach man
ufacturing property.
Again, the state has granted certain
exclusive privileges, to companies who
are engaged in the performance Of
public services.
No argument can be needed to show
that if there is to be injustice in tax
alton. it should be rather directed
against property used in monopoly
than against property which is in
fierce competition with other property
to obtain a profit to it's owners.
The contrary is the practice. The
rented dwelling is taxed all he traf-
fic can bear. But gas, water and
electric light companies are reached
in the same way as manufacturing
property and pay a tax upon from one
half, to little more, on the values
which they themselves set up as the
amounts upon which they are entitled
to tax the people, through the price
charged for what they have to sell.
What justification can there be for
taking the property of trolley lines
out of the towns in which 1t is locat-
ed, to tax it through State authority
at rate which is from five mills
to one per cent less than the rate
it would be obliged to pay if taxed
where situated?
Mayor Buckingham's energies are
directed against the apex stone in this
pyramid Of wrong.
The direct state tax on the property
of cities and towns is the last weight
that will break the backs of the pre-
datory political machine composed of
lobbyists, of lackeys in office, who,
supporting the State tax, stand knee
deep in a political system that is
founded in corruption. and that must
shortly fall of it's utter rottenness.
This is the situation that presented
to the last Democratic State conven-
ton, and this is the crying evil that
the convention denounced, when, just
before the nomination of Judge Bald
win to be the party's standard bearer,
there was included in the platform
promise that the Democrats, if en-
trusted with power, would abolish
the State tax on property
Full power has not been given to
the Democratic party. But enough
has been given to make it exceedingly
doubtful if the State tax will again be
laid.