Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1924-04-09

of his cattle, horses, automobiles,
jewelry in fact everything that he
owned, according to the figures he
had given the assessor. These blanks
were compiled with the names in
alphabetical order. Then we pro-
ceeded to paste these blanks up in
the postofTice, banks, stores and other
public places, right in the mans
own communities You can imagine
what interesting reading they made
War bulletins from the World war
never proved half as interesting.
or course no one had any reason to
complain unless he had been conceal
ing something, and then it wasn't
good policy to talk. There was
nothing to prevent people kidding"
one another.
Say, what about that diamond
ring O. yours, you've been Dragging
so much about" l heard one young
fellow jibe another. We'll, you told
me it was worth 5000, and it amt
nothin' o. the sort. Here's your own
figures and it's worth just $25."
But look at that hunting outfit O.
yourn," the other fellow replied.
THAT fine dog, your gun-you said
the gun alone cost $150-why, the
whole outfit comes to only $25.
Right there's your own figures
What do you suppose happened a
year or SO later?
The actual returns of property in
creased in the various precincts from
IL to 20 per cent, notwithstanding
that it hot hon
everything was supposed to be going
down. This simply meant that the
honest man had ceased to be penal
lied for being honest in turning in
his property.
There's one more chapter to our
story.
| mentioned to you that we were
unfortunate enough to have suffered
a severe cloudburst in 1920 which
had wiped out several score bridges
in our county. Following a county
wide insistence on replacement, the
commissioners declared an emergen-
cy levy for new bridges Here is
where we saved around $4,000, and
since have caused other counties to
scrutinize matters of this sort more
carefully.
After the bridge contract had been
let and the bridges were going in,
there was a frequent allowing of
county warrants on the contracts, in
excess of funds on hand, and these
warrants were naturally registered at
Z per cent. interest Finally these
amounts grew to an excess of $780,
coo and people began to get little
alarmed.
1t appeared that there were no
| definite records available which
showed just how things stood. Some
of the county officials and taxpayers
began to ask how an accounting
might be secured.
| When the Farm Bureau took hold
of the matter there had been rather
/ tentative settlement on sixty COM
pleted bridges on which the total cost
appeared at $131, S9S.77. A re-
ducton of $S,226.92 had been made
from this amount and warrants to
the amount of 100000 issued, leav-
! ing a balance of $22, 671.S5 unpaid
on these particular bridges.
The Farm Bureau appointed a
committee of sixteen taxpayers to in
vestigate the matter. An engineer
from the state department was Sc
cured. During five days more than
| eighty bridges were visited. Bolts,
washers, and it might even be said
spikes and nails, were counted. Then
the charges made by the bridge COM
pany were carefully checked, In
some cases where the bridge company
appeared to have charged too little,
something was added, but in most
cases deductions were made Here
the deductions exceeded what was
added by $7,665.50 Bear in mind
that we were not finding any fault
with the bridges but only with the
cost The bridge company agreed
to this reduction.
A little later we discovered state
ments for twenty incomplete bridges.
We went through these in the same
way and here we made a net re-
duction of $6,125.47. The bridge
company again promptly agreed to
having this reduction.
Then we were able to secure
CllOlHCl IGuuCJlOA VI l L - w o !,
because we were able to show that
the cost of material had come down
since the first of the bridges was
built. This made a total of $685.
593.97.
Since our bridge experience other
countries in Nebraska have been do
ing some checking up and we have
been building some of our own
bridges.
Our experience shows, l think,
that people in the county should take
something more than merely per-
functory interest in their tax affairs
You determine your own taxes. If
you check up to see what you are
spending your money for, either you
are going to admit that you are sat
isfied or you are going to find a way
to make reduction.
The biggest thing that we accom-