168 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
action has been recognized as assessment rather than equaliza¬ 
tion. 1 
The matter of getting correct returns from the localities has 
been the subject of much legislation. Before any central equali¬ 
zation was attempted, beginning with 1841 reports from the 
counties to the treasurer, auditor, or secretary were required, 
showing the local valuation of property. 2 After the crea¬ 
tion of the first board began a further series of laws to secure 
proper returns of local valuation to the secretary of state as a 
basis of state equalization, 3 one of them authorizing the 
secretary of state to send a special messenger for the required 
statistics in case of the neglect of the county ^authorities. 4 
But the returns have never been satisfactory. 
The board did not even attempt to make an equalization before 
1854, and at that time the secretary of state declared the false 
valuations received made any action on their basis “mere guess 
work.” 5 It wms claimed that the board of 1878 was the 
first body which had before it a complete set of returns from 
every county, and that theirs was “the first endeavor honestly 
to live up to the law and equalize in fact as well as in name.” 6 
As early as 1861, in a complaint of the inequality of taxation 
on account of the false returns of property, the secretary of 
state declared it to be doubtful if a return of all property could 
be secured unless through the appointment of assessors by the 
governor or legislature, who by residence and tenure of office 
would be removed from local influence. 7 The state has not 
gone to this extremity, but the powers of the present tax com¬ 
mission would seem to exhaust all remedies up to this point. 
In 1899 the commission was given “general supervision of the 
system of taxation throughout the state, ’ ’ but was really limited 
to making investigations and reporting the results to the leg- 
iL. 1870, c. 144, s. 1. 
2L. 1840-41, No. 8, ,s. 6; L. 1843-4, p. 6, s. 6; R. S. 1849, c. 15, s. 41. 
3E. g., L. 1854, c. 73, ,ss. 4, 6; L. 1881, c. 236, s. 4: R. S. 1898, ss. 1004 
sq.; L. 1903, c. 315, s. 12. 
4L. 1874, c. 43, s. 2: R. S. 1898, s. 1016. 
5S. J. 1854, p. 510; Secy. State Rpt., 1854, pp. 43-4. 
6Wis. (Weekly) State Journal, Dec. 10, 1878. 
7 Secy. State Rpt., 1861, p. .222. 
