Year: 1869

Judge Allen of Illinois in recent speech
ton of the Radical scheme of tax exemp-
ton for the bondholder:


\ bondholder in your neighborhood, hav
lng invested 100000 in bonds, takes his
family in his carriage for pleasant ride up
on your highways. AS they 60 along his
wife says to him:


''Why, these roads are better shan they
used to be-"


20, that" says the bondholder, "was
done last spring"


She asks, GLOW was it done?"


lie answers, ''the road tax was collected
last spring, and this was made fine road"


We'll, my dear, how much did you have
TO pay 2"


'Nothing at all. My money is invested
in government bonds, and Congress says it
is not right for me to pay tax upon bonds"


Well says she, "this is good for you,
but little hard on the rest"


They rode on and came to beautiful
school house; everything comfortable for
the children nice grounds, and cool well
of water.


why" says his wife, ''here is nice
school house put up since we last rode
along. How much did you pay for that"


go, not anything. You know that was
done by tax. They had to collect ten or
twenty cents upon every one hundred dol
lars worth of property in the district to
build this house. My old neigbbor had to
pay this upon his lots, and that widow lady
over there paid too, and they made it up.
But | don't have to pay any tax. My
money was invested in bonds, and Congress
would nQs let me pay


"That is good for you," says the wife,
but little hard on the rest of them"


''Ihere is a big school there says the
bondholder, "and they have hired a good
teacher Our four little children ought to
go to school this winter. guess we had
better get them ready. Perhaps next year
We viii send them off to college. We
will not have to pay to school them. All
that is collected off the other property of
the country. My bonds don't have to pay
any taxes, you know"


We might, would it not be deemed invid-
ious, point out and name many bondholders
OF this character in Rochester who are
known to almost every citizen. They have
their property all slowed away in govern
ment bonds they pay no taxes they use
our streets and public places they are
lighted by our lamps and protected by our
police; they use our courts and have the
benefit Of our laws in their litigations :;
some OF them are so mean that they will
not take a newspaper but sponge their
reading at the Atheneum and few of them
are ever known to give cent to any pub
lie charity or aid in any laudable enterprise.


These men are in every community.
They own, thus exempt from taxation by
Radical policy and law, one sixth of all
the property Of every kind in the United
States. There is not a toiling x-payer-
not a mechanic or laborer who has to pay
tax upon his little homestead, who does
not know some of them. Is it fair-is it
rights it just, that these wealthy men,
owning one-sixth Of the best property of
the country, shall 60 wholly exempt from
taxation for the support Of government, ma
tional, state and municipal and at the same
time enjoy all the benefit and protection of
such government? Shall the toiling millions
among whom the balance of the property
OF the country is distributed continue to pay
the taxes of the bondholding aristocracy /?
These are the questions before the people.