Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1901 — Righteousness Has a Day. [ARTICLE]

Righteousness Has a Day.

Mayor lorn i.. Johnson of Cleveland has just given the county auditors of Cuyahoga county some valuable information concerning the light in which their proceedings are regarded by honest men. The auditors had intended to cleave the valuation of the property of a certain railroad at the nominal figure at which it had previously stood, when Mr. Johnson offered a few remarks. He observes: “The company fixes its own taxes. It issues passes, employs influential lawyers and does as it likes in the matter of taxation. Your method of fixing railroad taxes is unfair and unconstitutional. It will be questioned by the courts. I appear before you not as a private citizen but, as mayor of Cleveland, knowing whereof I speak and accusing you openly. Not only do

you, the county auditors, ride on rail-, load passes, but they are used by judges and state officials. No man with a railroad pass in his pocket can honestly fix the taxes a railroad should pay. 1 our oath of office requires you to assess it at 12 per cent, or one-ninth of its true worth. Thus you commit perjury. Don't you think you have flung away enough of the people’s millions in these railroad charities? The city of Cleveland loses from $20,000 to $30,000 a year through your neglect to tax. If you want to throw money away don’t give it to the railroads.” Struck by remorse or shame, or moved by Mr. Johnson’s eloquence, or hypnotized by his magnetic force, or otherwise influenced, the auditors raised the valution of the road by 15 per cent. There was one pretty good day’s work for a strenuous mayor. It shows that the possible achievements of an honest official are not bounded by the technical limits of his power. Mayor Johnson had no legal authority to force the county auditors to raise a railroad’s asssessment. He simply gave them a little plain speech, fired by the manly indignation of an earnest citizen, and he had his way. There is room for Johnsons.