The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-12-13

law.
 But Assessor Grimm admits that failing any instruction to the con- trary he has appraised personal values as in preceding years: that is to say along the same unit standard of value as has been acted upon by preceding assessors.
 It is hard to see how he could have done otherwise. His position that the wholesale values are to be the taxable values is one that has been generally accepted by the towns in Alaska, although an obvi- ous fact in this connection is that it is one that wholly favors those who monopolize any particular commo- dity such as coal, oil, lumber etc. in the communities.
 And that really is all the criticism that has to be made concerning the luminous, instructive and valuable report of City Attorney O'Neill. He has unquestionably performed service for the councilmen and especially for the Board of Equaliza- tion. It meets practically every point that can be raised and it be- hoves them to then to be guided by it. But it would have been well had this report been handed in to the city and a copy furnished the city assessor before he began the assess ment of the taxable properties in this town. It could then have been appraised on the proper basis or value and the city got down to a bed rock of business and law which they surely never reached before.
 This time the city will probably have to hobble through the mystic mazes of uneven appraisements and negotiable assessments. But il ought to be for the last time. They now know where they stand, and they ought as responsible men to be guided by their knowledge. These annual taxation squabbles are ridi- culous. The mere fact that Nome is able to support so extensively com mercialized a society, so many extra vagancies public and private, is wit ness enough of the fact that there ought not to be these sordid strug- gles to evade paying for wha: ill turn the citizens are none of them any way slow to demand.
 Businessmen, or some of them appear to forget that the town ana it's costs of up-keep are maintained almost exclusively for their benefit. The costs of the street department enabling rapid delivering and conve' nient freighting, the expenses of the fire department affording the stores ample fire protection for their in- sured or uninsured wares, the costs of the police department-all those 1 things are most directly for the nen eft of the businessmen in Nome i There remains for consideration the 1 School expenses. These are shared 1 by all, and the business men and the busness interests surely benefit by the higher standards of mainte- nance for the public schools not any less than do the general residents.
 Moreover, it has to be pointed Oul one of the surest ways of maintain. ing winter population here and upon which the business element must finally depend for a living, is to have an efficient school. The fac1 that some of the people who have families of school age became con vinced that the schools had deterior. ated for the past preceding two years has caused some to leave the town who otherwise would have stayed here. The school is nation. al, a territorial and municipal as. set, Land it is one whose benefits can. not be properly appraised in dollars and cents. or in the cost of its maintenance. A good school is one that returns its expenses thousand fold and bad school. an inefficient school and an indifferent school is dear at any price.
 Despite all of this and despite the fact that indirectly practically all of the money taxed in Nome is re- turned to the business men who are taxed, we have the annual evasions always before us when the Board oi l Equalization meets.