Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1915 — Was W. L. Wood Chosen to Represent the Wealthy Only? [ARTICLE]

Was W. L. Wood Chosen to Represent the Wealthy Only?

! “Hurrah for Wood and The Democrat!” was the greeting we received Friday evening when answering the telephone’s ring. The party at the other end of the line said that even though six out of every seven who voted in Rensselaer and Marion township at the last subsidy election held here had voted in favor thereof, “I pay more taxes than fifty of the fellows who voted for the proposition. The first half of my 1914 taxes is $250, or just about what 2 per cent subsidy would cost me. Thanks to both The Democrat and Mr. Wood for what they have done to wipe out any further imposition on this score.” — Jasper County Democrat. The Democrat quite adroitly conceals the name of the man who is presumed to have thus spoken, but his identity is of little consequence. If either he or The Democrat labors under the idea that because he paid $250 taxes x’or the first half of the year makes his citizenship worth that of fifty men who did not total that sum they are foolish egotists and the only object we would see in parading their names in connection before the public would be to see who suffered by the comparison. The advantage of any improvement in a community is a benefit according to our ability to employ it or the factor it becomes in developing and improving what we already possess. If our bigoted friend who imagines that his worldly goods have made him worth fifty ordinary people pays taxes as he boasts in the sum of SSOO per year, he is assessed for the fabulous sum of $12,500. If a railroad subsidy placed a 2 per cent tax on him he would have to pay $250 for the construction of the road. If his assessment is based upon 40 per cent of his actual holdings, he would be worth over $30,000. Iffing a little further, for the sake of meeting his own foolish argument, supported by that recent champion of plutocratic interests, the construction of the road benefited property in Marion township 5 per cent, he would be $1,500 better off in consequence of his investment of $250. The fifty poor people who supported the subsidy proposition in order to force this increase upon him would have to divide this advantage among them, receiving only about . S3O advantage each. With, all due credit to the sagacity which our friend who conceals his identity must have exhibited in order to have become so fabulously rich, we are willing to credit the fifty with fifty times his intelligence in business foresight and with fifty times his value in citizenship for their progressive interest in Rensselaer. We have known wealthy land owners to oppose roads and ditches and various improvements but have not considered them justified in stalling progress because they did not want to pay the tax nor because they considered themselves worth as much as fifty of their progressive neighbors. We recall only a few years ago when sidewalk petitioners if they lived in the outskirts of a town could be compelled to wade through mud because some obstreperous wealthy man refused to build a sidewalk in front of his vacant lots which he was holding for investment. Probably “Wood and The Democrat” would have had so much interest in the welfare of this man who boasts to pay $250 tax as his first installment that they would have told the poor fifty to continue to walk in the mud and not force progress and taxes on the shoulders of this poor-rich blockade. Thank goodness this man whom The Democrat poses as the horrible example of the burden of taxes is not a fair sample of the wealthy men of this city and township, nor of the state or country. They represent only a small per cent, the one-seventh for whom Representative Wood and The Democrat are so much concerned. This is an age of majorities, an age of greater equality and an age when the citizenship value of a man is not represented by what he has but by the service he renders in the development and betterment of his community.

Here is another paragraph that undertakes to prove that the poor man has no right to a voice in the matter of progress and presumably if “Wood and The Democrat” had their way a law would be passed that would deny the farm -tenant and the day laborer a right to vote at all. The Democrat says: “The renter, who is here today and away tomorrow, could vote a tax on his landlord for which he would not be liable to pay one penny. The farm renter might- perhaps have three or four votes in his family and he could vote a tax on the owner of the farm and before the tax was levied and collected he would be in some other township or county. The land owners might vote against the proposition, yet his vote would be largely overbalanced by the tenant who paid none of the tax his vote had caused to be levied.” <- Discussing the interurban with farm owners in various localities where the electric roads have been built we find such unanimity in praise of them that it leaves no doubt as to their value in making for convenience in • marketing and in travel and these things mean higher land values and better cities. Rensselaer needs an interurban railroad over the route surveyed recently and if the action of "Wood and The Democrat,” a fine boasted combination, has resulted in keeping the road out,

we see no cause for boasting except from those who do not have the welfare of Rensselaer and Marion township at heart. Even the shadowy individual whd praises “Wood and The Democrat” in his selfishness and egotism can have no other satisfaction than helping to retard the growth of Rensselaer. “Wood and The Democrat” .can represent the retroactive one-seventh if they choose, but The Republican is glad to be with the big majority, even if they are composed of “farm tenants* and the “fifty” insignificants whom the heavy taxpayer claims to overshadow.