Year: 1873

.


the net income of the road when it should pay
on the whole $13, 100000. Taxed as you are 1t
would have paid into the County Treasury OF
Placer $4,000 last year. and relieved you OF
more than two-thirds Of your taxes. The peo-
pie gave it $141,000 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 $40O, 900 in
terest on them for twenty years, making $780,
600, 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.


"7'o the voters 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
hundred miles of it will be within your county,
and will pass directly through your county seat.
In the Construction Of the road there wall be ex-
pended in your county not much II any less
than nine millions of dollars, and about t,oo
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
then be subject and liable to taxation in the
same manner rs other accumulated wealth, and
in addition to that the Railroad itself, as it is
constructed, from year to year, IS subject to the
same taatoqv as all other property.


Yoma 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 $3.50, GOO in bonds,
at eight per cent interest for twenty years.
You Wal then have TO provide 500 900 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 $40,0 900
in gold in our County Treasury, and taxes were
only three dollars on the thousand, but our 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
adding any increased value of other property,
adding any property accumulated from the
expenditures of building the road, were taxed at
the rate. $50 600 600 at thirty-fve cents per one
hundred, J this will yield an income of $31, 800,
or 81, 500 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
$4,000, 900, with the road completed it will be
$12, 600, 600"


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 tsat sum- 1t pays
them to have ring officials that can save the
800, 900 year taxes, and they have managed to
do it so far, and it is for you to say if the ring
is to be continued in power


'It is the history of every raafoad enterprise
that along its line and in its neighborhood, pop
aion Is very largely increased, and it is reascn-
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 80,
900 900 each year, Had it done so, you would
yet have retained in your pockets two-thrds of
all the taxes you haze 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
railroad is refusing to pay one dollar out of
twenty of its just taxes, it is charging yoW three
prices for every pound of freight it carries for
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
swindling was going on.


Your County affairs are under the control of a
secret ring, and no can 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 spoils 60 to
favorites, and that no man, not a creature of the
ring, can do or supply anything for the county.
When this ring condescends to receive bids fo1
printing or for hospital services, it lets the con-