Commissioner Jenks Slated For Turn-down

COMMISSIONER JENKS SLATED FOR TURN-DOWN.

Governor Bliss in his message to the legislature complimented the state tax commission for its efficient work and this commendation was take to include their work in the assessment of the railroad properties of the state. His actions, however, in the matter of appointment of a railroad commissioner appears to be diametrically opposite to the words of his message. Tip Atwood is an earnest friend of the railroads, if he is a friend of anything. Commissioner Manville Jenks of the state tax commission is said to be slated for a turn-down. He is also said to be the commissioner who stood most strenuously for a railroad assessment running above the $200,000,000 mark. His reward, it is said, will be a turn down and the substitution of a man more friendly to the railroads. The man whom the governor is said to have agreed to appoint on the tax commission in the place of Mr. Jenks is Mr. A. W. Kerr, of Houghton country, whose record in the legislature is very kindly toward railroad interests. If such is to be the reward of a man who in the performance of his duty to the people seems to have considered that duty paramount to any duty he owed the railroads, few men who accept places on the tax commission are likely to have the courage to stand up for the interests of the people.

Of course it is the duty of the tax commission, as of all other commissions, to deal justly with all interests, railroads as well as the people, but there is little reason for the representatives of the people to borrow any trouble lest the interests of the great corporations be not properly looked after. They are not in the habit of letting their interests go uncared for. The interests most likely to go uncared for are the people's. The railroads appear to have ways and means of getting their interests fully taken care of whether the state treasury gets the taxes is ought form them or not. And what the railroads dodge paying the individual taxpayer has to make up. A tax commissioner who carefully guards the interests of the state in making assessments ought, therefore, to have the support of the governor in remaining to the end of his term, at least, in office.