230 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



clear down to assessor, it does not matter whether you are a 

 Democrat, a Republican or a Mugwump, but we will have 

 justice." Let us lose sight of partisanship for a time, and 

 say, " We believe in eternal justice, and give us justice or 

 out you go." 



Mr. Edson. I should be very glad to have a law such as 

 the gentleman advocates, but can we get it? That is the 

 question. 



Professor Roberts. Yes. 



Mr. Edson. I do not know whether the gentleman has 

 ever been in the Legislature, or not ; but, if he has been, he 

 must know something of the difficulties in the way of 

 securing the enactment of such a law. I fought hard last 

 winter in our Legislature merely to procure an enactment 

 that should say that the law already on the statute book 

 should be enforced, and what was the result? Forty votes, 

 out of two hundred and forty, in favor of it, — that was all. 

 The other two hundred had personal property that they did 

 not intend to pay any tax upon. Inhere is where the 

 difficulty came, and there is exactly where you will find it 

 will come every time. Look at the injustice of the thing. A 

 young man moved into a small town in this State ; his 

 father and uncle had died and left him a great deal of 

 property, and he had made a great deal of property himself. 

 When he came down to that town the assessors asked him, 

 as they usually do, " What shall we tax 3'ou for personal 

 property ? " He thought $300 would be about right. So 

 they assessed him that amount, and for fifteen years he paid 

 a tax of $300. He died, and his property went to probate. 

 The next year his estate was taxed $2,300. The result of 

 getting hold of that $2,000 was to put the taxation of that 

 town down from $10.00 to $8.50 per thousand. Now, I 

 contend that every widow and orphan in that town worth 

 $1,000 paid $1.50 a year for fifteen years into that capitalist's 

 pocket. He might just as well have gone into the chicken 

 houses of those widows and orphans, and stolen $1.50 worth of 

 their chickens. It would have been more honorable to have 

 done it than to do what he did. I brought that case up before 

 the committee on taxation. I am going there again this 

 winter, and shall try it again ; but I have no idea I shall be 



