Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-12-15
THE COUNTRY HOME
BY MRS. w. H. Eel

Gus tax equalization act to defy the demands
of the voters in two general elections and
to hold two sessions inside af five months to
continue the scheme which protects the big
interests" and which heaps taxes without
limit on the plain common people of the
state of Georgia.
, There are thousands of farms sold under
fl. fas. because the people could not make
sufficient on these farms to pay the onerous
taxation These fl. fas. are the evidence of
two things First, that the state has put
its iron hand on helpless landowners when
the owners were poverty-stricken, without
money to pay. Second, that every land own
err thus evicted by state authority becomes
disfranchised and never can vote any more,
until he can raise money enough to pay all
back taxes and the taxes for the running
year, thus accumulated, and the fl. fas bear
ing interest all the time to the state. This
Acknowledgement becomes heinous, when the
boil weevil calamity is considered, as it
should be.
The United States made a donation to
Toxic Japan, of ten millions on account OF
a calamity caused by earthquake. Here IN
Georgia poverty is penalized by the state,
and the poor people who have bought their
homes are likewise made serfs, because they
could not bring up tax money to pay the
enormous salaries of the enormous hordes Of
salaried officials in the Empire State of the
South.
The day of reckoning will surely come
Russia would be a safer place to- live in
than Georgia when the revolution starts in
this latitude Russia would deal fairer with
the peasantry than is being done here among
us, if the tax gathering throttle you. Quot
ing from a speech made by Representative
COvingtOn on the floor of the house last week.
while l sat near enough to listen. cit is get
ting to be fatiguing to see the solOns in such
sympathiZing mood for the sake of the high
flyers who dance so gaily on Peachtree street
and who are SO sOlicitous for the farmers in
Druid Hills"
1t is>not impossible that this years fl. fas
will be sold at public cutlery in the near flu
ture I saw letter last winter written by
a tax collector in a Georgia county who
wrote to the comptroller general that he had
brought the lands the farms, to the court
house door, and not dollar was bid on the
property. He did not get a dollar to turn
over to the state.
Nobody with soul in their bodies would
buy up such pOverty-stricken homes of Geor-
gia The state will surely disfranchse every
single one who could not pay. 1t is Scylla
or Charybdis.
These unhappy ones would not be allowed
to vote for even more responsive or wiser
representatives. They debarred by state
laws from voting to turn out faithless 1egis-
lators. The great Behemoths who rule in
the senate who will not vote out the tax
equalization act, as demanded by the voters
of the state, can still congregate at will in
the state capitol, can still draw seven dollars
day for regular and special sessions, can
still do the bidding of those who are keep
ing watch over big fortunes and are intent
on despOiling the small farmers and owners
OF real estate to carry the wastefuI ex-
pendltures of an unwilling or ignorant state
administration. We are drifting into dam
gerous places. If we resist by violence we
Will have civil war. If our courts and legis-
Iatures can cOntinuetto despoil the plain peo-
pie, it is either anarchy serfdom.