Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 May 1908 — ANOTHER CASE OF DEFECTIVE MEMORY. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER CASE OF DEFECTIVE MEMORY.

The Dr. Hartsell estate has been put on the tax duplicate by County Assessor Lewis for |17,400 which the doctor had evidently forgotten about when listing his property for taxation. This is for the years 1906 and 1907, and no doubt there were omissions in former years, but the county assessor could not trace it back further as he could find nothing of record by which to do so. No one will believe that Dr. Hartsell accumulated the more than |20,000 cash of which he died possessed in a year or two, yet he gave in very little to the assessor.

In 1906 he gave in but S6OO cash and $5,000 notes, while the county assessor has found that he had SB,OOO in certificates of deposit at that time. In 1907 he had the same SB,OOO and other cash items sufficient to make $17,400 for these two years that he had “forgotten” to list. The tax on this omitted property will be in the neighborhood of S6OO, or about enough to pay the salary of the county assessor for a full year. The personal estate is this year listed at about $24,000. Just why a man like Dr. Hartsell, who had no kith or kin dependant upon him or whom he cared a rap about, and who made practically every dollar he possessed in Rensselaer, would attempt to shift his just share of the burdens of government —which he apparently did —and thus making it harder on the honest man who gave in all his property for taxation, is beyond the comprehension of the ordinary mind. And yet pr. Hartsell was a man “held in high esteem” by a- great many and had a big funeral with lots of flowers, and always voted the republican ticket straight.