The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1915-05-13
is 1T TRUE?

The legislative correspondent of the
Duluth News-Tribune begins
lengthy, complimentary article des-
criptive of the last legislature with
this specious statement: Taxation is
the test of Legislative service" Is
this true? If it is we will be compell-
ed to radically revise all our theories
of state-craft. 1t is not true, how
ever, it never was and never will be
true. 1t is the false sophistry of pol
itical commercialism that has been
proclaimed from the house-tops by
tight wad property holders from time
immemorial, so persistently and vo-
ciferously that the great unthinking
masses have come to accept it as the
gospel of craftsmanship, but instead
of being that it is the political heresy
of aristocracy, that false doctrine of
un-earned wealth, the propaganda of
those best able to bear the burdens of
government, but who lie awake nights
to devise ways and means of shifting
those burdens to the shoulders of
those less able to bear them.
The real test of legislative service
is benefit, benefit secured for the peo-
pie as a whole and not for any favor
ed class.
1t is true that the last legislature
cut the appropriations for public ex-
penditure $1,1S4, 1853 from the amount
appropriated by it's predecessor, but
cutting appropriation does not always
spell benefit.
The cut of $35 900 in the appropria-
ton of the Forestry Board each year
for the next two years means that the
Board will be compelled to cut out the
efficient fire patrol system that it has
established in Northern Minnesota
and and which effectually prevented
disastrous forest fires in this region
during the last years. The legislature
might as we'll have abolished the For
estry Board. A Forestry Board that
boards only in st. Paul is of little val
ue to the state. One general forest
fire in the Northern part of the state
will cost the state hundred times the
amount saved.
The immigration Bureaus appro-
priation was cut to the bone; $25, 900
a year for this Bureau is joke. 1t
means that it will simply be turned
into political Bureau instead of an
immigration affair.
The main saving was secured by
cutting out about million dollars
from the appropriation i'll aid of the
rural schools which means that these
schools will be reduced in efficiency,
which the plain everyday parents of
plain everyday pupils will not consent
to for a moment. By cutting this ap-
preparation the Legislature shifted
this educational burden from the
whole state to the local districts. The
wealthy city resident will have his
state taxes reduced nine cents and
four mills on each $1OO, of his assess
ed valuation and the farmer residents
of country districts will have his local
taxes increased five times that
amount.
We venture the assertion that no
representative of a country district
will urge that he voted for this cut as
a reason for his reelection.
A careful examination of this ST.
1874, 1853 cut will disclose that the many
were cut for the benefit of few. The
man who pays taxes on $4,000 will
save $9.4O and the man who pays
taxes on $1,000, ninety-four cents.
In the economy record of the last
Legislature the men who make things
and do things, more than ever were
made the goat.