Would Take Step Backward

WOULD TAKE STEP BACKWARD.

Auditor General Powers is out for a return to the old method of taxing railroads. Mr. Powers regards the change from specific to ad valorem methods of taxing the railroads as the price the state has to pay for Pingreeish. Little has been gained for the people up to the present time by this change, it is true, but there might be gain in the direction of equal taxation, if officials could be obtained who would serve the people as well as the officials of the great corporations serve their employers. The great trouble with all these matters is that too often the men the people elect to take care of the public interests owe their first and paramount obligation to the railroads, and hence do not conserve the people's interests only in those particulars with which the interests of the corporations do not in any way clash or conflict.

It is undoubtedly true in general that owners of large wealth do not and will not pay their proper proportionate amount of taxes. As a general proposition individuals do not either. The few who try to be strictly honest and those so circumstanced as to be unable to dodge or hide their property possessions are the only ones who discharge their full duty in this particular. Those in possession of large wealth always have ways and means of dodging taxes which are lacking with the man of small wealth. By nature there may not be much difference among men as to the disposition to dodge taxes, but the accumulation of vast wealth or the coming into possession of it in any way, seems to develop this disposition until the mere accumulation of money by any and all means which will add to the pile becomes the ruling passion. All sorts of crookedness short of that which is so open as to insure a state prison residence is resorted to to increase their pile. And while this spirit controls as it so manifestly does at the present time, no law is going to secure a very near approach to equal taxation. Those who do really believe in the principle should continue the strife, however, and taxation according to valuation is the better method, the fairer method or way of getting at it.