Year: 1873

IL


the net income of the road when it should pay
on the whole $is, GOO, oOO Taxed as you are it
would have paid into the County Treasury OF


Placer S120, 900 last year, and relieved you OF
more than two-thirds of your taxes. The peo-
pie gave it $141, 900 q mile to construct and
equip the road, and now it refuses to pay taxes
on one twentieth Of this amount.
| Out of their own mouths we will now prove
all this: Early in May, 1868, when the company
was asking the taxpayers of Placer to vote
them $3.50, 900 in gold bonds, with 100000 in
terest on them for twenty years. making $780,
00O it issued an address and scattered it broad
cast all over the county. We here insert the
following extracts stipulating with the voters Of
| Placer County


CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILROAD.


"To the uoters Of Placer County:


| You are called upon to vote your assistance
in the construction of the Pacific Railroad, and
the company in this manner desire to present to
YOU some of the resons why you should render
such assistance.


This work, when completed, will be the great
est of any age or country-the great highway OF
| the richest commerce and most extensive travel
of the world. And citizens of Placer nearly one
Vi
and will pass directly through your county seat.
In the construction of the road there will be ex-
pended in your county not much If any less
than nine millions of dollars. and about taco
million of it within the trading and traffic dis
tance Of your county seat. The whole OF this
vast sum, when expended, will Immediately en-
ter into all the transactions OF business conduct
ed within the county, and into the permanent
and substantial wealth of the country, and will
Al EakTa 10
same manner as other accumulated wealth, and
in addition to that the Railroad itself, as it is
constructed, from year to year, is subject to the
same taxation as all other property.


You are asked to assist us to the extent OF
$3.50, ,000-let us make up an account of the cost
of such assistance. You give $780, 900 in bonds,
at eight per cent. interest for twenty years.
You will then have to provide 5000 yearly to
meet interest and to meet principal at the end OF
that time Your rate of taxation for county
purposes this year is unusually small, thirty
cents on the one hundred dollars


Yes we were then out of debt, and had $40, 900
in gold in our County Treasury, and taxes were
only three dollars on the thousand, but tax
payers have paid from fifteen to thirty ever
since, and will until the ring and railroad pow
ers are whipped at the polls


Suppose the railroad alone, without
dlulIp any iLCltdoeu Ndluc VI othSl pIOFcAtJi
or adding any property accumulated from the
expenditures of building the road, were taxed at
the rate $50 900, 600 at thirty-fve cents per one
hundred, this will yield an income of S3l 800,
or $1l 800 per year more than the interest you
will have to pay-this annual surplus at the end
OF twenty years being nearly sufficient to pay
the original bonds. Your whole taxable proper
ty for the last current year was only the sum Of
So 900, with the road completed it will be
$l2, 900, ,000"


Here they pledged the company to pay taxes
in this county on nine millions of dollars, and
now if you talk of taxing at even one million
the whole Company, from its President down to
its lowest menial, is in arms and ready to swear
it is not worth even half that sum. 1t pays
them to have ring officials that can save the
Sl00 900 year taxes, and they have managed to
do it so far and it is for you to sey if the ring
is to be continuelin power.


"Itis the history OF every raiload enterprise
that along its line and in its neighborhood, pop
aton il very largely increased and it is reason
able calculation that when the road is completed
the population 'of your county will be quadru-
pied"


This road has been finished the whole length
Of the county for five years; and has it paid
taxes according to the above stipulation on So
000 900 each year? Had it done SO, you would
yet have retained in your pockets two-thirds of
all the taxes you have paid in these five years
How did they escape paying taxes on this So
600, 900 through all these years? Through the
weakness or corruption of Placer County Off
cials, is the only answer that can be given. The
monster evidently found it cheaper to overreach
mentally or corrupt your ring officials than to
pay their just taxes. Charity leads US to hope
it was mental weakness and nothing more that
caused all this, but to your property and money
the result was the same


Do you doubt but that the railroad COM
pany will labor hard and spend much money
to keep these ring officers or those they name
and control in power-as we'll doubt the exist
ence of yourselves These ring leeches will be
all violent anti-monopolists this Fall, and the
company will tell them to PROMISE and even
swear, to do everything the people want, and
when the election is over will shrive and make
it all right with them out of taxes saved and
enormous fares and freights collected.


Remember, voters of Placer, that while the
ra road is refusing to pay one dollar out of
twenty of its just taxes, it is charging you three



you, and three prices for every mile you ride on
its cars, and that your officers and representa-
tives for the last six years, the Auburn Ring,
have covered to or connived with this monster
and dared not or would not speak n word in
your favor while this, your cold premeditated
swndling, going on.


Your County affairs are under the control of a
secret ring, and no man tell the extent of the
rottenness and corruption that exists and has
existed for the last six years in this regard 1t is
matter of public notoriety that the spols go to
favorites, and that no man, not creature of the
ring, can do or supply anything for the county.
When this ring condesoends TO receive bids for
printing or for hospital services, it lets the
tracts to the highest bidders. Even the supplying
of the charity institution for care of the poor sch