The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1917-02-16
MAY DIE OF THE REMEDY.

The address sent out by the committee of the lower house
of the state legislature over the signature of Speaker Conner
and which appears elsewhere in The Sentinel, but repeats what
has come echoing to us for the years past. Of course some will
be surprised that the states expenditures should so far exceed
its revenues. 1t would seem that something must be done or
else we will find ourselves in the position of the boy who was
endeavoring to figure the frog which crawled up two feet in
the day time and slipped back one at night, out Of the we'll.
What is true of Mississippi is largely true of every other
state in the Union; it is true of the National government; it is
true of 80 per cent of the cities and a very large per cent of the
counties. In making appropriations there seems to be little
regard to the amount of money available to meet them. Every
body and every state or locality wants something, and as a
result bills are contracted beyond the public revenue. In our
judgment the matter can never be corrected by a commission
with headquarters at Jackson endeavoring to pass on assess
ments in the various counties. That is beginning at the wrong
end.
1t seems to us that there should be a Budget Committee,
whose duty it should be to study carefully the states needs
and its ability to pay. or eXpend if you please, and then to pre-
pare in advance of the meeting of the legislature the maximum
appropriations for the various state enterprises, elemosynary
institutions, etc; and the law-making body should be absolutely
prohibited from exceeding in any case the maximum allotment.
Now as to uniform assessments, that is a Utopian dream
it will never be until the millennium or until everybody sees
alike and regards with the same sacredness an oath or obliga-
ton. But a very powerful incentive to proper assessments lies
in the public schools and the salaries of the county officers.
When the terms Of the present county officials close, their
successors will be on a salary. The statute fixing salaries
could be amended SO that the maximum for each county could
be received only upon the condition that the county's assessment
was what it should be, and as a basis for determining that,
some plan could be worked out based upon the number of
square miles in the county and its total population as compared
with the total square miles in the state and the states whole
population. BY the same rule the maximum public school
fund to each county should be appropriated. These two mat
tiers would get very close to the hearts of the people and there
would be some mighty stirring around to see that the assess
ments came up properly. a.
We repeat that we doubt seriously that any state COM
mission will ever approximately work out anything even like
a twentyfift cousin to uniform taxes. While attempting to do
so, we may find ourselves in the fix of the negro's cow about
which he wrote Gen. Walthal when that gentleman was in
Washington City. The faithful son of Ham advised that he
was "givin' her castor oil, tar and brick dust and l believes she
gwineter git well of de dezeaze, but l sho' believe she's
gwineter die of de remedy"