The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1922-02-03

been the erect, even OF CnaC, winch
the State officials and the Governor
admit could have been done.
in 1920, county taxes for all purpos-
es, including the City Of St. Louis,
amounted to $50,958, STOPS. This
does not include taxes levied upon
railroads or public service corpora
tions of any kind.
Admittedly, then the taxes of the
people could have been raised for
county purposes to the amount Of ST.
095,88702, or about eight hundred
thousand dollars more than the pros
pective revenue for state purposes,
from direct taxation, exclusive of rail-
roads. This would mean that the
county courts and local boards, by
following this Republican statute,
could have increased local taxation
$170 per capita and have been with
in the law.
This new policy, ill-considered and
unjustly devised, has sweeping effect
that is suggested merely by calling at
tention to what the county courts
courts could have done, and have
obeyed the letter of an unconstitu-
tional act. 1t shows how vicious the
entire procedure was, when it made it
possible for local officials to increase
the burdens of the people even to the
extent of ten per cent, when that ten
per cent is over $5,000,000 year.
But this is not all. In fully three
fourths of the counties, the increased
assessments, made arbitrarily by the
State Board, enforce the imposition
of state taxes amounting to increases
of from fifty to two hundred per cent.
1t is impossible to take the entire
state as an average, for the evil that
has been wrought is but slightly re-
vealed. 1t is essential that Individual
counties be considered, counties in
which the local courts were powerless
to save their people, and in many of
which local levies were shaved in or
der to avoid unduly intensifying pub
lie Indignation. 1t is in these counties
that the people have fixed examples of
what this program meant to them.
They will not harken to any seductive
plea that the sum yielded by the re-
duced tax levies assessed against the
enormously increased valuations in the
state as whole is trifle less than it
was last year, when they realize that
the surplus in the revenue fund on
January LIST, 1921, was greater than
the states annual income from direct
taxation. They cannot get around
this.
1t is cowardly for these people to
say that the local courts are to blame,
when they have furnished to the
counties the standards by which tax
alton must be measured, standards
which the counties cannot abandon.
1t is cowardly to send agents about
the state to talk about that ten per
cent clause, when an honest examina
ton of this clause reveals the fact
that even its observance would be a
horizontal increase of ten per cent on
all taxes--an increase of S5,000,000 a
year, or more than the state tax
amounts to in a single twelve months.
If they intended to reduce taxes, and
were merely seeking to readjust val
uations, why did they authorize the
local boards to make any increase at
all? If they have any power to inter-
fere with the constitutional maxi
NUNS placed upon all forms of taxa
LlOn, VneH why ulu LHey IOL pTONiuc
that there should be no local increases
Of any kind-not even ten per cent?
There is one real reduction appar-
ent in the whole state-this must be
acknowledged. In 1920, the railroads,
and public utilities paid $420,988.99
into the state treasury as against
1917, 631.70 which they were called
upon to pay in 1921, reduction of
about II per cent. Maybe this lis
what the Republicans mean by ere
ducing taxes. In order to be strict
ly fair, however, it is necessary to say |
that there is hardly railroad or a
public utility in the state that is not
not complaining Of increased taxes. |
The illustration shows the fallacy of |
the whole Republican method of fig
uring.
1t may become imperative, for the
sake of saving Mr.. Hyde, that the Re-
publicans offer leather medal for
the Missourian who can prove by his
receipts that his taxes actually have