Licking Valley courier. [volume] (West Liberty, Ky.) 19??-current, 1917-02-15
GUMPTION, ~
is hich plain Common Sense, in United States
language, without Educational Furbelows.
BY L. II. HOVERMALE
UNDER FALSE PRETENSE.
s!III 8. I5yI

means untrue ne Sd
felon and incarcerated in the penitentary.
But politicians may obtain the suffrage of the citizens
by false pretense and get by with it.
Just now the most gigantic, the most fragrant,
Of false reense is about be perperated upon the good
citizens of Kentucky that designing politician dared
attempt in all the States history of buccanneerng.
Don't you remember Mr. Voter, that when the class
flied property tax amendment was submitted for your con-
sderation it expressly stipulated that tax law bas
ed upon that amendment could become operative without
being submitted to the people for their approval?
And don't you also see that Staneys Tax Commission
has prepared bill that meets with the approval of the
State Tax League ian organization composed of the
identity whom defy hidden that only God and the
Commission know who they are), and that bill has in it
the emergency clause making effective and operative i'm
medatey upon its passage And compliant Stanley fear
ing that the Legislature to be elected in November would
not acknowledge the sovereignty of the State Tax League
4whoever they may @ has called an extra session of the
present discredited Legislature to rush the bill through
emergency clause and ALL
y so you Friend Taxpayer as helpless as trussed
FOWL You have been made the victim of game of false
pretense and have no immediate remedy. The only hope
hes in the eectng of Legislature wise enough patriotic
enough and courageous enough to undo as far as possible
the harm done by the present one. a4
Countrymen, the situation is a serious one The use
less expense of the extra session. big as it is is the least
of the danger You are about to be delivered bound and
gagged to bureaucracy having the power to tax you off
your little holdings To alay your fears you are given
reduction of Is cents the hundred dollars in rate but
the Bureau at Frankfort fixes the values To illustrate:
Your little home would bring 81 900 at voluntary sale
and you list it accordingly Your State tax at the pres
ent rate 55 cents is $3.50 But the Bureau says: We
hoxyQ rdafa 10
raise the values This property has convenienees that en-
hance its value. Mark it up 5OO" Then your taxes
at 40 cents on this valuation $780, and what this
special session does to busted tuasury will make big in
creases in valuation unavoidable if this bill becomes law
There seems little hope that the body of Legislators
called to meet the 14th will be either capable or willing
to frame and pass equitable tax law and it is clearly
evident that they will consume the entire sixty days in
passing the bill already prepared And the people will be
denied the right to vote on the measure.
The Stanley administration has been the bggest as
set to the Republican party in Kentucky that could have
been devised If the wsest leaders of the Republican
party the State had had the power and deliberately
planned to strengthen themselves they could not have i'm
proved upon the program of the present administration
But the proposed new tax law is the immediate
menace to the people The legislators who met yester-
day have shown that they Indifferent to the views of
the public and the ordinary form of protest would be
less Du Cne situation so grave and the possibilities
for reparable injury to the taxpayers imminent that
extraordinary effort should be made. The citizens of
each county in the State should meet enmasse in the
y seats and protest against the new tax law demand
that the special session adjourn and send big delegation
to Frankfort to insist that these things be DONE
Ii there is not something sinister and undemocratic
in the proposed law why the rush to get it through with
out letting the people vote it? If there exists an emer
geny now the same emergency has existed for years and
certainly existed when this Legislature was in regular
session and deliberately refused to consider the matter
Does every member hope to land of the fat jobs that
the bill creates? Why resort to methods that in effect
obtaining the peoples consent to an amendment to the
Constitution under false preense?
At least let the people vote on the bill.
If Stanley and his crowd could realize that safe and
political policies are always based upon frank con-
dence in the people and their sense of right and justice
both they and the State would fare BETTER but unfortun
atey they do not The Stanley idea is to drive the peo
pie to what he wants. and his efforts in that line have pre-
pared for him fixed place in the kingdom of political OBJ
livOn upon his retirement from his present position.