The Washington times., 1915-01-08
THE DISTRICTS TAXES

II Cnere Is n DHO cOnOlClOn IN
Washington with reference to the
raising of revenues to run the local
government, it is bad because Con-
gress made it bad. Senator Ken
yon will recall that the District does
not make its own laws. 1t doesn't
reach its fist into the strong box at
Fifteenth street and Pennsylvania
avenue once year and filch out five
or six millions of dollars.
The District has had various
forms Of government, various meth
DDS of raising revenue, in the past.
Some of these systems worked with
out direct contribution Of Federal
revenues to the city; and they pro-
duced here a Capital which was the
derision of the Diplomatic Corps, the
horror of people who had to live in
it, the disgrace of the country.
Certainly no critic of present con-
ditions here will overlook the fact
that Washington is an artificial city.
It wouldn't be here but for the fact
that Government decreed that it
should. There was and is no COM
mercial or economic occasion for
placing city here. Baltimore was
great city, for its day, before the
idea of building Capital in the
wilderness had occurred to the COM
promisers of post-Revolutionary
days as a settlement of sectional diff
ferences.
But the Capital was ordered built
in the wilderness because there were
conditions in the new nation that
seemed to make it politically desir-
able for the Government to lift it.
self up by it's bootstraps and plant
itself in a neutral territory.
The plan did not work we'll. Two
generations of experience demon
strated that it was not developing
q Capital worthy of the nation; and
generation ago a new plan was
adopted-by Congress, not by the
"tax dodgers" Of the District-that
has been in effect ever since. That
plan has produced a creditable and
desirable Capital.
Broad streets and spacious ave-
nues were laid out in the early days;
by whom? Not by the people of the
District, who were not here, but by
the Government. A city of magnifi-
cent distances, it was called, orig
inally in derision.
In general, the scheme of this
town was laid down on the ground
before any people had come here to
live. It was broad, generous, expan-
sive, ambitious. But there was no
economic justification for it; no rea-
son to believe that local commun-
ity would be able, out of the profits
of general business, to sustain such
an establishment as the nation had
planned.
The people of Washington would
not have planned for themselves the
wide streets and splendid vistas, if
they had been called upon to pay for
these from local taxation. They
have borne the burden. 1t
would have been an economic impos-
But under the stimulus of the CO.
partnership arrangement that was
adopted a generation ago, the city
has grown, developed, become wor-
thy of its place in the nation and
the world. Are the people who have
come here by reason of these condi-
tions to be blamed for that?
Are they to be denounced as tax
dodgers, because they have only paid
the taxes that their masters i'm
posed on them?
1t is said that Washington is the
haven of wealthy persons from all
over the country, who acquire legal
residence here in order to escape
taxes on personally. Does Senator !
Kenyon understand that Washington
made the laws which permit this =?
Congress made them.
Washington, making its own laws,
would not have permitted the town
to be a refuge of tax dodgers. 1t
would have needed the money. But
Washington, governed by Congress,
taxed without representation, had
laws imposed upon it which have
produced these results, to some ex-
tent. Let the blame be placed on
the lawmakers, not on a people that
has had no voice in making it's laws. !
1t is charged that government
costs too much in the District. The |
schools here are expensive; but there
are two complete systems, for white
and colored people. The District
didn't create them; Congress did,
and Congress will continue to main
.ain them.
The system of courts of the Dis
srict is expensive. But does Sena-