Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1914-02-25
TAXATION YOKE STRANGLER
DIR. Porter Compares Systems of This
and Foreign Countries

cause to howl about outrageous taxa
ton it Is now time | have Just paid
tax on Hardserabble farm, 157 acres,
S326; $50 more than last year, $l38 more
than two years ago; God only knows
what 1t will be next year. That is the
Prog ressive Tax Idea," Matched in
LaFoliette's brain, | suppose, ard in
the heads of those progressive college
| people who would make of Wisconsin
another Utopia, no matter how many
toiling mortals are ground down BY
high taxes to make it.
have long voted the prohibition par
ty ticket. and stiil believe in its princi-
pies and platform. but have got to quit
and vote some other ticket that de-
clares out and out for lower taxes, for
taxing mortgages, for a sensible income
tax law that will tax everybody little
who can vote tax upon US. Mr. Edi-
tor. do you know the rich widows with
their tens of thousands of dollars at in
terest, the whole bunch of them in Yer
non county, on their mortgages don't
pay as much tax as Fletcher Telford
pays on his old horse and dray wagon.
And yet lot OF them are foremost in
foisting upon tax burdened commu-
nifty more taxes for the poor people to
l
exempts the best secured wealth of the
realm from all taxation. Honest Jim
Davidson, in his message TO the legisla-
ture, showed that our mortgages prac-
ticRlly draw the same rate of interest
as those of iowa, where they are taxed.
find that every ninth dollar we have
received the past year from the farm
has gone for taxes; the year before
they took every 14th dollar. The treas
urer, this year, generously gave me a
free receipt for my nine dollar income
tax Oh, the farcical foolery OF such
an income tax law. 1t only hits the
high spots. You say it exempts most
half million dollars in personal pro-
perty from taxation in this county. that
people would gladly pay tax upon.
Make an income tax law 70 hit every
voter, man or woman at least dollar.
| rode from Zurich to Munich with
Swiss gentleman. "Ail Swiss incomes
above $40 fr, or $3.50, are taxed; $50 ia
exempted for each child in the family"
! | rode into Amsterdam one night with
a young Dutchmau who worked in Ger
many. He had Teddy bear which he
wound up and it turned >ummersets, to
our great amusement. II get $40 a
month in Germany as book-keeper and
pay $40 year income tax. If | don't
pay it my employers must, and ! am
discharged The Prussian tax starts
with incomes of 1925; the Austrian $3.50;
the Swedish $500; the Bavarian $3.50
and Saxon 500 Such tax would hit
lot of people who never knew what it
was to pay a dollar to support the state.
and the very ones who vote big taxes
upon the community to pay. When the
I a - Il -
worse. Anything altruisric, Utopian
chimerical will carry, even If it bank
rupt the community. See what they
stand for in Chicago; all commendable,
but very costly. ThistsWisconsin Idea
may be all right, altruistic but it is too
cussed expensive. heard about it in
| Scotland, Norway and Germany They
think il nice. Britain has old age, sick
benefit. and unemployment pensions,
They don't like the last two. If this
bunch keeps in power we will have all
these pensions in Wisconsin in few
years. A hundred years after Lord
Nelson, dying, said to his officers,
take good care of Emma" his mis-
tress, Lady Hamilton, his heirs were
drawing some SIS. 900 yearly for what
he did at Trafalgar. hope they won't
| fasten such load to our descendants.
But you cannot tell.
went out to Versailles one day. IL
was glorious, what we saw, but long
ago the rulers spent 200 million dollars
to make it beautiful You remember
how the common people of France were
crushed by the weight of unjust taxa
ton; how the mobiles paid no land nor
road tax, yet owned most of the land.
| In 'S9 you remember the trades people
went out to Versailles and bro lght the
king and queen to Paris. You rememz
Der what followed, and your guide book
tells you that France was celaged in
blood, largely because of the millions
wrung from the hand of toll TO beautlfy
versailles. Every one of these costly
/ improvements in roads, monuments,
agricultural schools makes it m ore
expensive to live. Hope the new party
In power in Wisconsin will lop off lot
of office holders and reduce, instead of
increasing salaries.
met an American gentleman in
| Stockholm just from Moscow and Pet
ersburg. Every tenth man in those
cities wears government uniform"
How long before every tenth man in
| Wisconsin will hold some office, at the
/ ptCs1tib tdbC vi CAGdtiuk bilCGS. Anu
suck pap from the breast of Mother
Wisconsin? We need economy on the
county board, which in these days of
many commissioners, should go, and
three commissioners do the work of
our thirty-three. Think of paying $1,000
| for the little service done by this au-
gust assemblage every fall
But this high taxaiiOD, Mr.. Editor,
is lot oil il made hare in the comfy
and school district. paid eighty cents
for schools every day that they have
run thu past year, or four dollars each
week. Forty years sgo the $l42 paid
for school purposes would have run
school of IS pupils 81 months in winter,
paid teachers board and fuel bill, and
those pupils would have advanced I'M
der the fifth grade scrub teachers of
those days faster than our pupils do to-
day. They would have been, and were
better writer's, better in mental arith-
metic, better readers and at fifteen
years of age every one of them able to
add ledger column quickly and nearly
always correctly. and if you would offer
them a ten dollar note with six endorse
ments on it made inside of seven years
if they would compute the value Of the
note correctly, you lose the note. Can
the graduates of the high schools of to-
day, in the three RS do what the pu-
pills of the same age and with only a
half the schooling did fifty years ago?
No The business men of Chicago and
of every CITY have the same story to