114 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a concerted effort to see if something could not be accomplished by unity 

 of action. For that reason, the State Grange decided to press three par- 

 ticulai* measures, the tax statistician bill, the pure food bill, and the 

 farmers' institute bill. 



THE TAX STATISTICIAN, 



With reference to the first; it was a measure directly in the interests 

 of the agricultural classes. Farmers made the assertion that they were 

 paying more than their just share of taxes for the support of the govern- 

 ment. I believed that, but when asked for the foundation on which 1 

 based my belief, I had to confess that I might have gone through every 

 department of the capitol at Lansing, and I could not find the first set 

 of figures that would substantiate that statement. So the farmers 

 set themselves to thinking about this, and they said we want a tax statis- 

 tician, who shall ascertain if there is a foundation for this belief. Such 

 a bill was framed, and today it is a law of the State. Col. De Land, the 

 Tax Statistician, said that the very men to whom he looked to supply him 

 with the necessary figures to make a compilation to present to the next 

 legislature, and on which they should make a basis for a new tax law, 

 that they were the very men who were standing in their own light, and 

 refusing to give him the information desired. He asked me to call the 

 attention of the farmers at the different institutes to the fact that this is a 

 law that was enacted for their special benefit, and that when he wrote to 

 the supervisors, they would in many cases pay no attention whatever to 

 the letter. Farmers should insist that their supervisors answer all these 

 interrogatories that it is possible to answer. This law was urged by the 

 farmers, and enacted for the benefit of this class, and Col. De Land told 

 me that present statistics, so far as he could get them, showed that real 

 estate today was paying 87 per cent of all the taxes, and personalty only 

 13 per cent. Statistics also show that personalty should pay from 30 

 to 35 per cent. If farmers refuse to furnish the necessary information, 

 who is to blame? 



PURE FOOD. 



So far as the pure food law is concerned, there was a bill that was pre- 

 sented, not at the particular instance of the farmers, though at the direct 

 instance of the State Grange. It was believed, from the fact that Michi- 

 gan was surrounded by states where they had pure food laws, tliat to a 

 certain extent Michigan was the dumping ground for all kinds of food 

 products, and that it stood the people of this State in hand to enact a law, 

 authorizing someone, somewhere, to put a stop to this indiscriminate 

 food adulteration. I suppose you all heard Prof. Rossman, the State 

 Chemist, talk on this subject, so I will not dwell on it, only to say that 

 that bill was the most bitterly contested one that came before the legis- 

 lature. It was fought in season and out of season, fairly and unfairly. 

 The best legal talent of this State was employed by the manufacturers 

 and wholesale dealers to defeat that law. Not in the interests of the con- 

 sumers, not in the interest of the public health, but in the interests of 

 putting some dollars into their own pockets. Notwithstanding all that, 

 the bill was enacted into a law, and is today in successful operation. 



