JUNE MEETING, 1877. 103 



but have sclllslnicss enough to prefer home comforts, to showy acts to excite the 

 envy of others. Neither do I believe iu hiziness. Our well educated and de- 

 veloped muscular forces arc worth a fortune to us, but we lose them if not 

 employed, or if we abuse them by overwork, llemembcr that you have, or 

 ought to have a family, and that they are your best companions and most trust- 

 worthy friends, and should have a voice in all matters that affect them, merely 

 allowing yourself the veto power on stating rational objections. 



I have thus far spoken of ourselves as individuals. As communities wo have 

 also been extravagant, and ever since the Avar began we have taxed ourselves 

 most outrageously to support this extravagance. We have built too costly cap- 

 itals, court houses, churches and school houses, that have not only taxed us 

 heavily but thrown us into debt, that has encumbered our property and paral- 

 yzed our energies. It is estimated that the gross indebtedness of the Northern 

 States has increased from one hundred to three or four hundred per cent 

 within a few years. Here is a young city in the eastern part of this State 

 whose indebtedness is forty-three per cent on its valuation, and every man, 

 woman, and child within its corporate limits (taking the census of 1874 for its 

 population) is mortgaged to the amount of over fifty-one dollars each. This 

 matter of indebtedness and taxation is one that interests ns all, and should 

 engage a share of the attention of every man. I charge not our officials gen- 

 erally with dishonesty, but why is it that our taxes have thus increased? We 

 have increased the area of our tillable lands, we have increased our productions 

 and our property in kind, and though wo have not increased the number of 

 our township officers or their salaries, except slightly in the case of the super- 

 visor, still our taxes have gone rip, up. 



I have in the Patent Office Eeport for 1851, just read a letter from B. A. 

 Coop, a farmer in the old, worn-out, rockbound State of Connecticut, in which 

 he speaks of the general prosperity of farmers there, and says that a young- 

 man with a capital of two thousand dollars easily increases it to from 110,000 

 to $15,000 in fifteen years. The secret follows: ''Our taxes are less than 

 twenty-five cents on a hundred dollars, including school taxes, and we have 

 good schools, too, ten months in the year." 



The difference between one-quarter of one per cent as in this case, and five per 

 cent, which, perhaps, is the average of our cities and towns (it certainly is not 

 the maximum) if put on annual interest at ten per cent, will on this S2,000 

 amount in fifteen years to ^2,730.75. Need we go any further than this one 

 item of taxation, to explain the reason why the times are so hard, and why 

 every one is growing poor? 



The business of recuperation once begun in earnest, will in time correct the 

 errors we have fallen into. Adversity is a good lesson if we heed its teachings, 

 and often leads to the most permanent prosperity. It is said that the French 

 nation after exhausting itself in the late war with Prussia, including the vast 

 sum paid to the victors as the price of peace, is to-day better off than Prussia 

 with all her spoils, and it is even predicted that the Southern States after being 

 drained of their very vitals by the late war, will recover their normal condition 

 before their Northern conquerors. The city of Chicago after being visited by 

 the most destructive fire of inodern times, has by taking a firm hold of the 

 situation, so far recovered her former prosperity, as to have to-day a less in- 

 debtedness in proportion to her valuation, than most of the cities of our State. 

 Her citizens have taken the bull by the horns, have inaugurated municipal 

 reform clubs, Avhich claim to have reduced taxation one-half within the past 



