The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-28
To The STARS BY EASY WAYS
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.

| The three amendments of the Kan
| sas constitution form a program for
| Kansas progress. 1t is upon the whole
farm program. 1t is intended also
| ana incidentally greatly to benefit the
| towns of Kansas. But each amend
ment fits into the plan to make a
| bigger and brighter Kansas and the
| adoption of the whole plan is neces-
sary to get the highest results out of
the three amendments.
The farm tenantry amendment is in
tended to give the farmer boy and girl
nope for home in Kansas. Did YOU
ever realize that more than half of
the boys and girls of Kansas live on
tenant farms? What hope have they
for farm home? This land tenant
amendment would put into every boys
neart desire to learn the farming
business and to go into farming as a
life work in Kansas. For this amend
ment would pzake it possible for him
to buy farm without any long time
of tedious waiting scrimping and
saving His Kansas muscles, his Kan
saS brain, his Kansas heart and his
desire to live and grow crops in Kan
sas would be his collateral. The land
would be the states security. If
amendment No. carries, the Kansas
boy will find it possible to elect mem
Ders of the legislature who will multi
ply the number of Kansas tax payers
by ten by taxing franchises, stocks,
DrOnertV
and reducing the tax rates on the
farm homes and farm improvements
so that the Kansas property which
earns the most and therefore needs
the most police protection will pay the
most.
Amendment No. will eaualize the
tax for every Kansas citizen, rich or
poor, landed or landless. And if we
increase the number of farmers by our
tenant act and multiply the number of
taxpayers by our taxation amendment,
as have been done in every other of
the twenty states in the Union that
have adopted amendments exactly like
amendment No. 2, we shall then have
state filled with citizens, all of whom
are paying taxes and none of whom is
Sinking and the tax burden will be
light on each. But it must be light on
each if we accept the good roads i'm
provements provided for in amend
ment No. g.. Amendment No. will
work a hardship on men who own vast
tracts>of land unless the burden of the
land is divided between those men and
owners of intangible property. But
we can have good roads and low taxes
by multiplying the number of land
owners and then multiplying the num-
Der of taxpayers by passing amend
ment No. 2. If we have hundreds of
thousands of small farms and hun
dreds of thousands of small taxpayers,
we can build roads that will bring the
produce of those farms to the rail-
roads at a minimum cost. Moreover,
we will distribute from the towns at a
minimum cost all of the things which
the town has and the country has not.
On a gravel road or an oil road or
dirt road that is properly dragged
and cared for, great trucks can run.
Yet where the farmers want a brick
road or a concrete road, these roads
may be established but they are not
provided for in amendment No. 3, ex-
cept where the land owners demand
them.
Here we have a plan to make our
farms multiply, to tighten the burden
of taxes, to widen the markets of cities
and increase the comfort of the farm
ers without materially adding to the
burden of any citizen but of making
all bear little and each his share.
No other amendments ever offered
in Kansas before have contained such
splendid provisions for a bigger. bet
ter and brighter Kansas as those
amendment carry. Not one of these
have all been tried and other states
have found them successful. Kansas
is the only state in the Union which
has not the power to help the local
land owner pay for good roads. Kan
sas is practically the only northern
state which has not adopted amend
ment No. providing for an equaliza-
ton of tax burdens and the farm ten
antry act is in operation in France, in
California, and is coming rapidly in
other states
The program is one which will not
only lift Kansas out of the mud but
will lift her by easy ways and short
stages to the stars.