Connecticut western news., 1916-02-24
Raising Taxes for-What?
g Editor of The News:

holders III CnIS IOWn nave ndu Un6lI taxes raised, regardless of the old say. ing, "You can push the people toe far From the mutterings we hear of among the business men and farmers, we gather that there is quite tax storm brewing. We prognOsticated this storm sometime ago. It thundered d little when $200 of the tax payers or town money was grabbed, without the knowledge of more than half the voters, 10 raise the District Nurses salary. In passing, let us briefly state, that the charitable Nurse Association. accord ] ing to much talk outside, some observa- tion, and some apparent facts, seems to have stopped being self-suppOrting, and is in danger of becoming sort of town charge, itself. Well, what we want to say through the medium of the town voters and peoples paper is this: At the meeting of the Board of Relief this week Saturday, you taxpayers who have been mercilessly taxed will have the opportunity to express yourselves 1 freely, unless paralyzed by fear of a Canaan jObberwock Don't rumble and grumble among yourselves at home or on the street and let it go at that, but get together and put up a public howl that will make whoever is run ming this town to suit themselves, sit up and take notice.
 There are business men who do not want to come down to subscription dances or grab bag charity socials in order to save themselves from financial thnrn property holders, therefore taxpayers, who do not want to become objects of charity in their old age, because this extravagsnt debt-ridden town taxed their property to death Isn't it about time that somebody got mp and read the riot act here in th,s town? Is it 35, 45 or 90 thousand dollar debt that the old town is staggering under? No single tax paying individual of sense wishes to stand in the way of all true progress or advancement of the towns best interest as a whole, not for few peoples interest or pleasure, apart from the rest; but hear this: A town in debt has no more right to be extrava- gant than has an in debt individual. A few of us may be able to ride through life on Pullman palace car salary, and golf, dance and cocktail It through life, but the majority of us can only afford the caboose or common day coach; that's our salary limit. The trouble with a lot of us is this: on caboose salary we are bound and determined to ride in private Pull man and our old town has got the palace car fever Where did sine catch it? Who is responsible for the con- tagiOn? This is a caboOse and con- mon day coach town, with plenty of private Ford cars on tine side. We can't afford all the New York City fads and luxuries, nor the things multi millionaires play with. We can't dip into all the social welfare or charitable fads and organizations lest the old town become an object of charity itself. Golf links, polo grounds. country clubs are for millionaire towns and million aires back them up. When the town appropriates $2, coo or $3,000 for this extra thing or that, somebody has got to pay; and that somebody isn't the fioater class, that come ill here and talk big and sheer at the farmers hand that feeds them. and while they can't pay their Waterbury watch tax without becoming strapped for weeks vet turn up their noses at the grumbling over burdened tax payers who keep the old town on its feet year in and year out as long as they live. We still, thank God, have the landed gentry, always considered the best in the world, and we have faithful reliable business men, solid as the ground and as honest. Is it not time, voters, for the town to be- gin to live within it's means? It is 1 just as needful as that families and in- dividuals should. If there are people here who wish to support a charitable organization or a Greek theatre out of their own pockets. let lem do it. NJ. body objects; but good many of us do object whenthese things are thrown on the town when half of the voters were not looking. Some of the methods used to get pet schemes put through that the majority of voters do not want are perfectly familiar and as equally understood by most of us. Those voters who simply cannot be trained to come to heel, when called upon to put one over on the town ere constantly having the once over put on them. when they are not looking-but we won't go into that any further, except to say you voters are to blame for your submit to it. For these "slick as grease" performances, the over-taxed land owners, farmers and all those whose business or properties cannot be hidden out of sight, have to eventually pay. We hope now that some have been taxed beyond all reason for what. they don't even know, will stop this private grumbling about it at home or among each other, and go to the Board of Relief meeting and put up big roar.
 We wish we might help, but though we are held to know enough to pay