Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1894 — PULLMAN IN INDIANA. [ARTICLE]

PULLMAN IN INDIANA.

Th© Great Magnate Now Han to Pay For Hi* Privilege*. The public generally will learn with surprise, if not disgust, that the valuable franchises of the Pullman Palace Car company in Indiana were enjoyed for years without the payment to the state of a single dollar for the privilege. His cars were run on every railroad in the state, enjoying the protection of the laws and making enormous sums of money for the owner, and yet there was no statute requiring any return for this. What was made was clear profit, and if other states have been equally generous there need be little wonder that this corporation found little difficulty in accumulating a fortune. Exemption from taxation is of itself equal to a good per cent on investment, as everything is receipts and no expenditure, and the making of fortunes is greatly simplified. Not only Pullman, however, but the telegraph companies and ths express companies were equally fortunate in this respect. The only taxes they paid was on their office furniture and other appurtenances of this kind, which amounted to little or nothing. But for using the territory of the state for their lines and other privileges of indispensable value to such corporations these companies, like Pullman, went scottfree of taxation. During the last session of the legislature Attorney General Smith drafted a bill to remedy this omission and to add the favored companies to the list of state taxables. The bill was drastic in its provisions and supplied a long felt want, but it was by no means allowed smooth sailing through the legislature. On the contrary, it met with most determined and angry opposition. A robust and well paid lobby was on hand to fight it at every stage. The Western Union and the express companies, as well as the redoubtable Pullman, were on hand “by attorney” to see that the bill was scotched if not killed. It was a formidable array of lawyers, professional lobbyists and interested parties that confronted Mr. Smith, but the plucky attorney general succeeded in defeating the “army of occupation” and finally got the bill passed, ft was not, however, until the very last day of the session and after the hardest kind of a fight that the new statute became a certainty. As a result of its provisions the state of Indiana has been made richer this year by SIOO,OOO, and this off of property which was never before a subject of taxation. It was not without a struggle, however, that the tax was collected, even after the law was passed. The companies refused to pay, showed fight and the attorney general was compelled to enter ‘ suit against them. It is in the nature of corporations that if allowed to enjoy special privileges for a term of years they eventually come to consider them vested rights. Abuses of this kind become entrenched and i it is always difficult—sometimes impossible—-for the state to dislodge the possessors with all the machinery of the law at its back. The new law above described makes a valuable supplement to the general tax law of the state, and for both the Democratic party deserves full credit. It has done invaluable work in the last few years in, teaching various corporations that the state has some rights which they will be compelled to respect.