and a thousand dollars' worth of personal property in the form: 

 of household furniture is carefully exempt from taxation. In 

 other words the house is taken but the furniture left. These are- 

 straws, but the}^ show the current of our legislation. The cur- 

 rent is flowing rapidl}^ towards the doctrine of no tax for personal, 

 estate, all tax for real estate. I have heard this doctrine more 

 than once openly advocated in the State House at Boston. Said 

 a speaker on one of these occasions : ' ' There should be written 

 in letters of gold over the door of the State House, ' Never tax 

 property which has power to run awa3^ Only tax that which 

 cannot run.' " This single tax and that tax upon the farm and 

 the home is certainly of interest to the farmer and the owner of 

 real estate. 



Note further how this doctrine of the exemption of personal 

 property has already taken possession of the Statute law of 

 Massachusetts. 



Thirt3'-four years ago the Federal Government, to meet the 

 exigencies of a great war, issued its bonds or promissory notes ta 

 the amount of many millions of dollars, and provided that they 

 should be exempt from all taxation. The contagion of this ex- 

 emption is one of the sad legacies of that war. It is the prece- 

 dent and the pretext for exempting money when loaned on inter- 

 est everywhere from taxation. Municipal bonds, railroad bonds, 

 promissor}^ notes of private parties, deposits in savings banks, 

 deposits in national banks, all clamor for relief from sharing the 

 burdens of government. Stocks, bonds, books of accounts, bills 

 of exchange, all securities that are most easily destroyed or 

 stolen and have greatest need of the protection of government, 

 refuse to contribute to its support. In 1881 what is known aS' 

 the Mortgage Exemption Law was passed. Upon its face a 

 harmless piece of legislation, a trifling amendment to a few 

 sections of the Public Statutes, its consequences have been tre- 

 mendous. It was passed under the fraudulent claim that it 

 relieve borrowers, prevent double taxation and reduce rates of 

 interest. The result has been the reverse. The tax which every 

 borrower of money has had to pay has been increased and the 

 rates of interest have not been affected, the interest rate depend- 

 ing, as it always must, upon the demand for, and supply of 

 money. It is impossible to ascertain the amount of property that 

 this law relieves from the burden of bearing its equal and propor- 

 tionate share of taxes. It is estimated by millions. * 



Consider the absurdity and injustice of this law. A gives 



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