Palisadian. [volume] (Cliffside Park, N.J.) 1906-current, 1915-03-27
Local Option Bill Killed
In New Jersey Lower House
By Vote of N to IL, Members Vote to Defeat Gaunt
Bill Famed for Regulation of Liquor Traffic In
Communities That Desire Its Control
or Elimination.

lHe IleliIleSSy IlOiile hulc lax Dill
was defeated in the New Jersey
Senate last Monday night by vote
of 10 to 6.
Voting in the affirmative were Sena-
tors Ackley, Barber, Hennessy, Nc
Ginnis, Munson, and Ramsay, all
Democrats. Against the bill were
Senators Allen, Colgate, Edge, Mathis,
Pierce, Rathbun, Read, Smalley, and
White, Republicans, and Wheaton
Democrat.
The debate on the measure lasted
for more than two hours, Senator
Hennessy taking up the greater part
of the time with his explanation of
the bill
Senator McGinnis, of Passaic, also
advocated the measure, stating that
he believed it would help to keep
manufacturing plants in the State.
Senator Pierce, of Union, said the
bill was the most radical he had ever
read and was not practical. He main
tanned that it was merely a single
tax act.
In support of the bill, Senator Hen
messy said:
Hennessy's Plan
81 hope strongly to impress the
fact that this is local option meas
ure, and however people may differ as
to theories of taxation, reasonable
men will agree that municipalities
should be permitted to deal with the
taxation question in its purely local
aspects. That is all this bill would
permit. 1t would require the assess
ment of all classes of property as at
present, but would permit munich
pality, upon a vote of the majority of
its People, to adopt - stem whereby
certain classes of property might be
exempted from taxation in the rails
ing of purely municipal revenues.
Should municipality vote to adopt
this system it will go into effect
gradually over period of five years.
Twenty per cent. of the exemption
being granted each year until at the
end of the fifth year the exemption
will be completed.
'The exemption would apply to
personal property and to improve
ments on land. The passage of this
bill would, in my opinion stimulate in
many municipalities a study of the
fundamentals of taxation and of the
social and industrial effect of differ
ent methods of raising public revenue.
The municipality, believe, which
would gradually exempt personal
property and buildings, exclusive Of
land, from taxation would attract
business and population from so many
directions that it would realize an
astonishing era of prosperity.
Successfully Tested
This has been the experience in
Houston, Texas; in Pueblo, Colorado,
and in all of the Northwestern Ca
madam municipalities which have re-
moved tax burdens from the attrac-
tive energies of their people. Munich
pal home rule in taxation has become
a leading political issue in a number
of States, including Rhode Island
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and
California, and it is rapidly coming to
the front as a substantial political
issue in Pennsylvania.
What New Jersey needs for the
benefit of capital and labor alike is to
have her industrial energies set free,
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of her extraordinary physical location.
which would make her, under free con-
ditions for the farmer and maunfac-
turer, the most prosperous State in
the Union"
Senator Hennessy dwelt upon the
impracticability, as demonstrated in
many States, of enforcing any just
or uniform system of personal taxa
ton. The returns made to the State
Board of Equalization show, he said
that the relation of personal property
assessments to the total assessment
throughout the State vary greatly in
the counties, being six per cent. in
Cape May and twenty-five per cent
in Hunterdon. The rural counties pay
a much larger proportion of personal
property taxes than the cities. In
Hudson personal assessments are but
eight and one-half per cent. of the
total and in Essex twelve per cent,
while the proportion in Gloucester and
Somerset is fourteen per cent, in
:, Morris and Burlington fifteen per
cent, Sussex eighteen per cent, War
rem nineteen per cent, and Salem and
Cumberland each twenty per cent.
1t was easier, the Senator contend
ed, to get at personal property in
agricultural districts where most of
it was out doors in the shape of the
farm machinery, wagons and live
, stock, while in the well populated
places personal wealth, while much
, greater in proportion, assumed the
shape of money in the banks, stocks
and bonds and other intangible or in
visible form that easily eluded the
assessor.
Glaring Inequalities
: Throughout the State, the Senator
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