Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1897 — SQUEALING? [ARTICLE]

SQUEALING?

THE FIGURES WERE RIGHT. The junior republican organ last week contained the following thrust at the city law makers: “The tax levy giv- n in the Jou nal last week was a surprise to our readers and many thought that there wag a mistake some place. The statement that the total tax in Renssel aer was $8.49 on the SIOO especially caused much discussion and even some of the city officers seemed to think tbal a mistake had j been made. On e street discussion ended by a committee going to the court house to get the correct figures, but they failed to return I and report the result of their investigation, j and the balance of the crowd ..re still in darkness. At the request of a number of our readers and that thnre may be no chance for dispute a e have gone to considerable lal >or to present the tax levy in full this week, which will be found elsewhere It is well worth preserv ing. r We w.u : ay,ver the figures as given last w« ek were correct with the exception of one or two tyuogiaphical errors and were taken from t ie commissioners’ record. 1 We acknowledge the courtesy of the Journal in the loan of its table in t. pe. What an object lesson, in connection with the above remarks of the Journal, it should prepresent to every reader, % glance at the levy < nlightens each taxpayer as to the am’t of tax he has to pay, and, according to the Journal, there is mourning in the camps of th and they rest se to be comforted. its publication must have created intense const rnation and indignation, arid s£v the Journal, “caused much discussiou v ?, n Bome df the city officers seemed to think thac a mistake had been made” —co’d not see how they had come to perpetrate sue h wickedness! The Journal rubs it in by assuring them that “the figur s as given last week were correct.” Ln “street discussion the rank and file denounce the boys on the board with having pulled the wool over the eyes of the men, and swear in their wrath that on the first occasion offered they will knock them out—at the polls, if th y tail m convention. Democrats take the matter philosphically, assured that it is not of their doing, and look on with amusement at “the tempest in a teapot” raging in the rallies of the opposition, at the same time sw f ig they might

s clearly be brought to cw;e * oat they are much more heavily burdened by the Dingley profc ctive tariff law; that they are axed, too, not on the number of'dollars they may possess but on the quantity of the necessaries of life consumed by their families. It they could but discern which is the tax and which the value and profits in goods purchased there would be a bigger howl go up from the Journal’s ' street disputantß than that which awakened the eciioesover the corporation exaction Again, if this street discussion” over city taxation will expand and extend discussion ;md investigation into national theoiies. and methods, and cal my consider them from every standpoint it must result in great good A careful consider ation of the subject will satisfy them that the owner of tin + American labor[always increases the prices of his noldmg to such figures as will insure him against competition rrom aoroad <mu at the same time reduces the wages of labor, ‘\ nf * a continued consideration they will learn further that the American baron pockets the entire proc- eds of liis sales, I lii Creape exacted tr- m Ins patrons, the decrease in ai ’n i le ernment gets not one farthing of revenue; they will learn further the protective duties reduce importations and cnrtail revenue. J he difference between state, local and national taxation, witnout inquiry as to the necessity of improvements in pro cess ol construction or projected, or the economy practiced,

in any event we have them to show for exp nditure, and avain the tax is as sessed upon possersions. Under national methods the tax is assessed against what is consumed, and if it be of American product the revenue is diverted into the coffers of tte owners of the pro net of American labor, and the gov eminent receives nothing. The Journal, however, is lou lin its praises of the national methods -it will “strain at a gnat and swe llow a camel,”