El Nuevo mexicano., 1916-01-06

Albuquerque, IN. a. ZEE. n, 4b@p'
Mf. EdIturs
One cannot help feeling gTatified at th'
work OF the Taxpayers League, as publleh
ed IN your issue Of yesterday The League
has certainly done splendid work. end / foI
one congratulate II. IL the "Bursum Law
Is workable, they have certainly tried Il
make II SO, It was no small Job to soc thai
the leYios ia all The counties were made
uniform, and Mr. James, Governor Hager
nan and the railroads that aided the work
are entitled to the thanks Of an our tax
payers. SO too, is our state tax commission
entitled to credit for The work it did ]
have kept track of some OF this work.. and
think ! know something Or It's scope. The
state tax commission and the Taxpayers
League both did splendid work. and the net
results Of the Joint work is good as far as
il goes but as Mr.. James and the members
or the state tax commission well know, the
whole job is but a nakeshift. Il doesn't
get The enubn Of the situation. The
work done simply is a splendid effort TO
make the Bursum Law work, and to ret
revenue enough out Of limited levies to run
our government. while but a scani one-third
Of our property values Is upon the assess.
ment rolls.
The great interests Of New Mexico, that
is the big mining companies. coal corpora.
tions, and livestock and land grant interests
in particular, and to a less extent the rail-
roads. are DESTROYS that the eBursum Law
shall work, and that revenue enough shall
be raised under il. on the anaaI amount Of
property now assessed to run our state gov
ernnents so that the people Mn be satis
fled and not cleinor for a full assessment or
all our property. and thus force those big
interests to pay their just share Of the ex-
pense Of conducting the state government
Every thinking man and woman in the
state who understands the question at all,
knows that in this state there is In private
ownership more than one billion dollars
worth Of property and also knows that only
three hundred and five millions Of it, or
less than onethird OF 1t, is on the assess-
ment rolls SO it can be seen, that the
owners Of ~segenstenths of 1t pay nothing
at all or that portion OF it, This condition
is simply an outrage ond no one knows it
better than the members Of the state tax
commission, the managers of the Taxpay-
ers' League, and the attorneys for the big
interests that are the beneiciaries Of this
injustice. ! here charge some Of the man
ayers and some Of the attorneys for the
big interests referred to, with being re-
sponsible for this condition Of our tax mat
tiers. Let them deny it If they can! Any
one can see that if we had on the assess
nent rolls. three times as much property
as we have. our tax Ievies could be just
one-third Of what they are and we would
be the lowest taxed state in the Unionl III
am here not mentioning the m~onopolIes,
high freight rates. waste Of our lands. fay-
oritism and other evils prevailing all over
our state. but Mr.. James, the expert, has
seen them, and no doubt has his own ooin.
ion Of conditions, aud Of our invisible
government but | surmise his present
position is not such as to make it expedi-
for him to ~criticise them publicly. I
hope you will publish this letter, for
tlould like our people generally to discuss
o.5se conditions. ! challenge a c%ontradic-
ton Of the statements I have here made.
Very truly yours.
ri s. RODEY.