The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-10-23
The Upness of
Our StucRtitude
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.


Kansas is In. grave danger Of be-
coming SNUG and parisaical. We
are getting stuck on ourselves. And
the first thing that happens to a man,
a community, or a state that is faint
ed with conceit, is the danger of decay.
Kansas is facing that danger In the
last decade we did not gain one-third
so many people as we had babies. For
as fast as the kids grew up they took
one look around at this state and pull
ed out We have done a lot of new
things for Kansas and done them well,
but we have neglected to do a lot of
old things as other states have done;
SO the man with a dollar or the man
with an ambition to make dollar,
finds he can get busy more profitably
in the score of other states than he
can in Kansas.
one of the log chains of the SOS
which is hanging around Kansas
neck, is our fool tax law which re-
quires all property assessed exactly
alike. Practically every northern
state, at least twenty of them, dis
covered the idiocy of this way of taxa
ton years ago and has changed it.
But Kansas hangs on to the theory
that a dollars worth of property
should pay a dollars worth of tax no
matter what kind of property it is
A home is taxed exactly as bust
ness house An acre of land bearing
millions of dollars worth of oil is taxed
lust as much as an acre of land whcih
crazes a Kansas steer. A public serv-
ice corporation making money hand
over fist is taxed at the same rate as
a public service corporation that is in
the hands OF a receiver. Land held
for speculation is taxed just the same
as land which is cropped and tended
and improved year by year. Millions
of dollars worth of mortgages go out
of Kansas every year because they
are taxed as high as the land on which
the mortgage is raised. The STATE
law is full of iniquities of taxation
which other states have rectified.
There is now pending before the
people of Kansas a constitutional
amendment called the Tax Amend
ment. 1t was adopted by practically
all the Democrats and all the Repuo >
leans in the legislature voting for it.
1t would permit property to be segre-
gated for the purpose of taxation; so
that the man who owns a home would
not have to pay so high a rate on, his
five thousand dollar investment as the
man who owns corner lot in the
heart of the town which is making
big interest for him. In other states,
as soon as this fool log chain of the
SOS was broken, the states i'm
mediately increased their number of
personal tax payers By leaps and
bounds. Some of these states multi
piled the number by twenty in five
years, and of course by dividing the
sum to be raised by a larger and larger
number of tax payers, the burden on
each tax payer is smaller and smaller.
1t works that way automatically.
In Kansas we ars letting millions
of dollars of oil property go untaxed.
We are not taxing equitabiy millions
of dolla S of franchises and gross re-
ceipts of various public utilities. We
can't do il under the Kansas. law.
Other states found themselves tied to
this old fogy notion and haV broken
away and are going ahead of Kansas
Their reIl estate is worth more and
their business is greater. Their popu-
lation increases. We cling to our old
idols and stagnate in population; see
our young men leave the state with
their ambitions and ability because
they can do better in other states. And
then we stick up our noses and pat
ourselves on the back and thank God
we are not as other men.
We have indeed made prohibition
work; made the blue sky law a. ma
tonal institution; the bank guarantee
spread over the civilized world We
started the individual drinking cup
and individual hotel towel, and we
pioneered municipal suffrage. We
have thought of a. lot of smart things
and have done them first, but the
Sangrene of. vanity is giving us the,
dry rot of decay. and we are not gain
ing population, and we are losing
standing among the sisterhood of
states. The Kansas legislature saw
this and almost unanimously recon-
mended for passing the three constitu-
uonal amendments now pending in or
der to purge Kansas of the bug of
self esteem, and put the state abreast
OF the other civilized states of the
Union. kansans must remember
Eugene Wares verse when they go
into the election booth
up was he stuck
And in the upness of his stucktitude
He fell"
Kansas must change her ways or
suffer.