The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1917-03-14

may our temple stand without cost
ly repairs, II indeed 1t can be re-
paired at all, for again referring to
Patrick Henry. "If you ever recur
to another change, you may bid
hdieu forever to representative gov
eminent,
Already We are drifting away
from constitutional government and
headed for an unnatural cross be-
tween an aristocracy of Judges and
hierarcy of insufferable Cranks.
THE sirene song of ambition"
says Burke" charms ears one would
have thought were not astuned to
such music"
No maxim in Jurisprudence or po-
litical science is terser or truer than
that of Chief Justice Taney-"THE
POWER TO TAX IS THE POWER
TO DESTROY" but il remained,
for the usurpations of our day to so
construe II as to mean that when
once the people delegate this power,
1t is absolute and unconditional, and
carries with II both the moral and
constitutional right to destroy, as is
so forcibly illustrated, for instance.
in certain cases of public bitches
snd sidewalks-.-literally taxed out
of house and home, utterly destroy
ed, cases in which not an item of
the contract was complied with, the
grade, and width of walk, the thick
ness of layers, the material and
proportion of mixture. all ignored,
yet the victim is forced to pay an ex-
orbitant price or this worthless pub
lie Improvement in a country sup
posed to have sonemordicum of re-
spect for property rights-usurpa-
ton rampant.
But 1t was not SO much the tax
itself the odious Stamp Act imposed
that the Colonies so nobly resisted.
1t was the intolerable abuse of the
taxing power, tax without the con-
sent of the taxed, taxation without
representation. -
What security have you when an
irresponsible commission, the crea-
ture of Governor or legislature
with a craze for creating new Of
fees, a commission whom you can
not call to book yet vested with the
taxing power, the most dangerous of
all powers, sitting in Frankfort,
feasting at your expense like PAM
pered prelates, who know nor care
no more about the value of your
taxable property or your share of
public expenses, than a weather.
beaten wooden Indian knows why,
when Zoroaster's Monotheism clash
ed with Dualism in Babylon, as in
physics, the forms of both We're
changed?
say, if they can sit there and &C
tually raise your taxes, not by rails
ing the rate but by raising the
amount of your assessment, wheth-
err by counties or precincts. under
the pretense of equalizing them,
they are to all intents and purposes,
exercising the taxing power, and
in spite of their euphonious title,
should be as odious to us as the
Stamp Act was to the Colonies.
Pray what check have the people
upon a rampant legislature shot
with the cant of unspeakable Har-
vies and things, in orgy of crazy
legislation, with it's hands up to its
elbows in the pork barrel, hard
pressed for more public funds to
squander, yet not daring to raise the
tax rate if it can redelegate the tax
ing power to plant commission
and have only to give it a sinister
wink to wiring millions from the
people?
II ever you surrender a system
that brings a fair and competent
Judge of property to your door
where you may have hearing.
day In court, judge familiar with
local values and conditions with
whom you may agree upon a fair
valuation of your taxable property
and. in case of disagreement, pro-
vides for home arbitration the decis-
ions of which cannot be reviewed or
set aside, you let slip a vital princi-
pie of Home Rule and Self Govern
ment that tips the sensitive beam
against Democracy in favor of cen
tralized power, thus delivering to
our free institutions another shot as
true of aim and far more costly than
those hurled through the priceless.
murel paintings of that triumph OF
art now crumbling amid the ruins
of devastated Rheims.
IFS ONLY ONE DOLLAR.
II .Al -