Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1924-12-05
soonsroGK. !IRGlNIA
FRIDAY. DECEMBER $. 1924.
TAxPAYlNG TINE

. There is little of the grin and
bear it attitude in the average
payer when the State separ-
ates him from his proportoinate
share of the Commonwealth's
operating expenses. There is
likewise a dearth of delirous
laughter when county and town
put the plus sign on the statutory
tithing.
In truth few men are exhili-
rated when coughing up for the
Golfers of the bodies polite
which slice the surplus from in
dividual earnings, and sap the
Substance from bank accounts.
The intrinsic value of the little
white ticket which inventories
your possessions and fixes your
pecuniary punishment do not ap-
peal to you as a profitable ill.,
vestment, for the accruing bene-
fits are not visualized when you
lei loose of your luere.
No expert diagnostician would
be required to classify the
sufferers from financial dyspepsia
when taxes are payable, and the
solemn visaged citizen whose
elongated expression suggests
the burial of his loving
suffragist and marital martyr
has probably just visited the
customs seat.
hnathema is heaped upon the
visible heads of our invisible
state, and either thief on the
cross was a paragon of virtue
as compared to the officials who
fix the tax rate.
Then there is the COVER
mental waste. Out of the barrel
of income only the bung hole is ex-
pended for public purposes. The
official cats are tapping up the
cream and only the azure tinted
output of bossy is used for the
common veal.
Just on the verge of the yule-
tide season there comes an cpl.
demic of grouciiitis and thu
average citizen becomes morbid
and morose.
And all because oftsxes-
A11weveT there is a brighter
side to the picture if we woult
just stop, look and listen.
We buy automobiles and we
want better roads and bridges
We pet them.
We install radios, acquire
musical instruments. bedeck our
selves with jewelry, pal ronize thu
pictures, install electric liz hts
out in telephones, build hand
some homes and add to our
material comforts in a thous md
ways.
In other words we become pro-
gressive, and progression costs
No philanthropist is paying for
the countless conveniences which
have revolutionized modern life
The taxpayer directly. or in
directly, foots the bill.
You want your children edu.
Gated. It costs to teach them.
Probably you belong to that,
better class of unselfish citizens
who want their children to have
better preparedness for the battle
of life than opportunity offered
ron. If you do you are willing
to be taxed for the increase
costs of schools. Maybe your
vision is veneered with values
which your porcine proclivities
are piling up for the undertaken
and the courts. and you don't
believe in too much education /
because you faint had none.'
But whatever you believe in
dividually, we want better schools
and we are getting them and
taxes are rising.
Incidentally we spend in a
year as much for candy as we do
for schools. Double as much for
tobacco rs our school systems
cost, and half rs much at the L
soft drink fountains as we do for;
That six gallons of
gas which Lizzie used for your
Sunday ride would pay your
ca pitatiou tax, and ca2itations
60 for schools.
Probably ron shot away nine
dollars worth of ammunition in
killing q twenty eight cent
"a bbit and charged the cost to s
sport. And vet If ron found B
eighty nine cents added toll
your tax bill you were threatened