Imperial Valley press., 1912-10-07
HERE ARE AMENDMENTS TO
Be VOTED ON NOVEMBER 5

lot to be handed to every voter at the
polls November 8 will be found in
the right hand column a list entitled
constitutional Amendments, Initiative
and Referendum Propositions" num-
bering eight in all.
First comes senate constitutional
amendment No. 5, which, if adopted,
will permit state and county funds to
be deposited in banks which furnish
IS part of their security the bonds of
irrigation districts within the state.
Hitherto these bonds have had a poor
market and irrigation has been pro-
NOTED with difficulty, because the
bonds could not be used by the banks
as security, in the way that federal,
state, county, municipal and school dis
trict bonds are used. To this proposal
no opposition has been manifested. Its
sponsors are Senators J. B. Curtin and
George w. Cartwright
Second comes the Shanahan free
textbook measure, officially known as
assembly constitutional amendment
No. 3. This requires that the legisla
ture shall provide for the appointment
or election of a state board of educa
ton, and directs th7ttsuch board shall
furnish free to all elementary public
school pupils in the state a series of
textbooks, distributed under conditions
which the legislature shall prescribe.
This is the free textbook amendment
over which the fight was waged for
more than 16 years, and which was
placed before the people by the legis-
lature at its special session last De-
cember. 1t has been fought by the
textbook combine, is opposed by the
special interests whose spokesman in
this case is Assemblyman Milton L.
Schmitt, and it is endorsed by all the
educational progressives in California.
Then come three divisions, each la
beled Referred to Electors Of the State
by Referendum Petitions" and dealing
with the bill passed by the special ses-
sion in order to create the office of
registrar of voters in Alameda county.
The bill was enacted to affect all coun-
ties by adding to the list Of county
officers a registrar of voters and
sealer of weights and measures, the
registrar to be appointed by the board
of supervisors. The bill is fought by
County Clerk John P. Cook of Ala
media county, who now has the patron
age Of the registration office. He Sc
cured more than $4,000 signatures to
his referendum petition, which has held
the bill up during the year. Cover
nor Johnson's administration, strongly
opposed to the Alamedan's political or
ganization, is working for the endorse
ment of the measure
Next on the list is the initiative
measure which proposes, through an
am endment to the constitution, to al
low San Francisco, Los Angeles or
other cities to consolidate with adja-
cent territory. in other cities or coun-
ties under one city and county gov
ernment This greater San Franz -is-
co" amendment has been drawn to Lro-
vide a chance for the large cities to
attain their natural developments and
to give their governments an opportun-
ity to deal with the public utility and
public Improvement questions that now
are complicated by city boundaries. The
cities around San Francisco bay, fo.'
example, cannot deal with the purchas:
of a telephone system because the
system is one and the cities are many.
So with water and transportation af-
fairs. Oakland's chamber of commerce
is spending a large sum of money in
attempting to defeat this amendment.
The initiative bill which would re-
store race track betting, under the pro-
lection of a state racing commission,
is seventh on the ballot. 1t is pre-
sented by the racing interests as a
bill to encourage the breeding of fine
stock, but the facts of its origin ano
tendency were so evident that all of
the state conventions of the several
parties adopted planks protesting
against the scheme as a fraudulent at
tempt to restore gambling.
Last in the column is the constitu-
tionaI amendment which grants 20 all
counties, cities, towns. districts and
townships local home rule in taxation.
This is the first great step toward the
scientific taxation of land values. the
taxation of the "unearned increment
which has been so brilliant a success
ir Canada and New Zealand. II isl
promoted by the State Federation of
Labor, League of California Municipal
tiles, Single Tax Society. Socialjs. and
Democratic state conventions, and byl
mcst of the experienced assessors in
the state. 1t will simply enaLle each
county, city, town or other division |
10 levy its local taxes in any equitable
manner it may choose, but the decision
to change the metho 81 taxation must
be made by vote OF the peopl4 in |
such division. No change is likely to
be made except toward more equita-
bic method, and for this reason the
opposition has not found grounds for
plausible resistance. The advocates of
a land values tax believe that wher
given an opportunity to make a
change, the people will vote to levy
a tax on land values only, and will
exempt the improvements from taxa
tion. This, they believe, will be fol-
lowed by the approval of a graduated
single tax, such as is now before the