American Agriculturist, December 20 , 1924 
Farm Taxes Must Come Down 
Grange and Farm Bureaus Are With A. A. on Tax Reduction Program 
W E ARE able to announce progress 
on our tax reduction program. The 
forces most- interested in getting 
some relief for farmers have joined 
hands. The New York State Grange and the 
New York State Federation of Farm Bureaus 
will cooperate with American Agriculturist 
in all work for the same tax reduction princi¬ 
ples. We are enthusiastic over being thus able 
to present this united front ail the way along 
the line to fight the farmers’ most important 
battle. 
Master S. L. Strivings, of the New York 
State Grange, writes us as follows: 
“Yes, we will go along and work with you 
in this matter, and you may assure your 
readers that the State Grange has a program 
akin to the proposals of your issue 
of the twenty-second of November.” 
(Notice the re-statement of these 
principles given below on this page). 
' “We shall be most pleased to coop¬ 
erate with you in your plans for the 
betterment of tax conditions among 
our rural communities. 
“We are having a confiscatory tax 
situation all over the State and ere 
long many, many farms will be for 
sale for taxes only. When the taxes 
take all and more than the income, it is 
time to stop expenditures. 
“There must be a levelling of the 
nation’s wealth to the burdens of gov¬ 
ernment or there must be a drastic cut 
in expenditures,, probably both. This 
tax discussion can ramify in so many 
directions that it is basically one of the 
most important matters just now be¬ 
fore our people. Governments can no 
more exceed the income than individ¬ 
uals, and when the income cannot be 
much increased, the expenditures must 
be adjusted accordingly. 
“Good as they are, and much as our 
people approve good roads, it is an im¬ 
portant matter of hozv far counties 
and tozvns can go in mortgaging the 
property of taxpayers in the issuance 
of bonds even for road construction. 
When it is known that every farm in 
the State is mortgaged for varying 
sums either by local mortgages upon the 
farm itself or by bonds sold as town¬ 
ships, or as counties, by the State, the whole 
matter grows in importance and looms forbid¬ 
dingly. 
“Our small County of Wyoming owes $440,- 
000 in bonds issued for road building. It has 
to borrow $40,000 more this fall as an emer¬ 
gency fund and the end is not in view. How 
much more can be loaded before the breaking 
point is a very important matter.” 
President Enos Lee of the New York State 
Federation of Farm Bureaus, writes: 
“I want to say that the Federation will be 
glad to cooperate with you and the Grange in 
anything reasonable regarding a tax reduction 
campaign. Mr. LI. C. McKenzie has been and 
still is employed by the Federation and has 
been in close touch with all State tax research 
work during the past summer. He still repre¬ 
sents us in Albany on tax matters. 
“We held the annual meeting of the New 
York State Farm Bureau Federation, Novem¬ 
ber 6 and 7, and passed resolutions on tax leg¬ 
islation. It was recommended that the Agri¬ 
cultural Confertnce Board give careful atten¬ 
tion to the State and local tax system and that 
a united program of tax revision be agreed 
upon. Another resolution stated: ‘We are 
opposed to any further issues of State or 
county bonds for road construction and 
recommend that the users of the roads be 
taxed through licenses, gasoline, personal 
property tax or counties, in an amount suf¬ 
ficient to provide for the entire upkeep and 
from 59 to 75 per cent of the cost of new 
construction.’ ” 
Mr. LI. C. McKenzie, tax expert of the New 
York State harm Bureau Federation, writes: 
“Thp success last year in getting the reduc¬ 
tion in the general property tax was due largely 
to your help and we mil cooperate with you in 
every possible way this year to chop another 
slice off of it , and in any other way that we can 
also. 
“Insofar as we have been able, we have kept 
yi touch with developments during the summer 
and have been doing what we could with the 
* limited funds at our disposal to prepare for 
E verywhere, 
tonight! 
Christmas Everywhere 
Phillips Brooks. 
everywhere, Christmas 
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine, 
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine, 
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and 
white, 
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and 
bright. * 
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay, 
Christmas where old men are patient and gray, 
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight. 
Broods o’er brave men in the thick of the fight; 
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight! 
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master 
of all; 
No palace too great, no cottage too small. 
Taken from “Christmas Songs and 
Easter Carols,’’ by Phillips Brooks. 
Copyright 1903 by E. T. Dutton & Co. 
the next session of the legislature. 
“The Special Joint New York Legislative 
Committee on Taxation and Retrenchment has 
been sitting since October 1 and preparing sug¬ 
gestions which it will make to the next legisla¬ 
ture. This Committee has just issued a report 
of its work last winter, and some of the find¬ 
ings are of much interest to agriculture. Among 
the most striking are these: First, farmers in 
New York are paying more taxes in proportion 
to their income than any other group.” (This 
“If there cannot be something done soon, 
what will become of us poor farmers with large 
families? I have asked other farmers about 
this, and they all agree with us on your tax 
reduction program.”—Mr. and Mrs. A- W. C., 
Pennsylvania. 
We are particularly pleased when the letter or 
the postal cards are signed by both the farmer 
and his wife. Certainly no one has any more in¬ 
terest in the welfare of the old farm than does the 
farm woman, and we are glad to see her taking 
more and more interest in the great farm problems. 
Letters are the very best ammunition we can 
have in fighting your battles. If you are not in¬ 
terested enough to spend a two cent stamp to tell 
us you are with us, then we do not believe the tax 
problem is bothering you much. Sit down now 
and send us a postal saying you are back of our 
campaign. 
More than this, we hope there will be 
a great study made of the whole tax prop¬ 
osition in every subordinate grange, and 
farm bureau and other farm meeting 
throughout the country. If there is no 
local organization, why not call a special 
tax reduction meeting and study the prop¬ 
osition, and then let us know that you 
are behind us? We will make no great 
progress by demanding something that is 
not right or that is not sound or based on 
common sense. Our program does not 
look toward cutting out needed work. 
Government must go on, and government 
activities must be carried on. We will al¬ 
ways have to pay taxes, and we will do so 
cheerfully if those taxes are well spent, 
if they are equitably raised from all 
classes of property, and if unnecessary en¬ 
terprises are cut out. 
American Agriculturist will fur¬ 
nish to any grange or any farm bureau 
meeting or any other group of farmers 
information for a tax discussion. Tins 
information will have ‘the approval of 
your own farm organization, or you can 
write them directly for it. We do not 
care how you work as long as you do your 
part and as long as all of us present a 
united front. 
But we do need your help; first, to 
study the problem and get your neighbors 
interested by talking it over especially 
at meetings; and, second, to let us know 
you are behind us by dropping us a line. 
Also, if we are on the wrong track in anything we 
say or do, do not hesitate to criticize. 
The Grange, the Farm Bureau and the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist are trying to serve you, but 
we cannot do it alone. 
Our Mission 
“I take seven farm papers, but I think the American 
Agriculturist is the best.”—W. E. F. 
T HE number of letters that we are receiving express¬ 
ing sentiments like the above encourage us to believe 
is true not only of farmers in New York, but that the paper is mee ting with the approval of our folks. 
also those of other states, and American Agri- There are a good many farm publications, many of them 
culturist’s work will be devoted not only to 
reducing farm taxes in New York, but we are 
doing everything we can along similar lines in 
adjoining States.) “Second, that the other 
rural occupations, including lumber, logging, 
manufacturing lumber and wooden products, 
manufacturing pulp and paper products, quar¬ 
ries, transportation and forestry pay far less 
of their income in taxes than the farmers.” 
Not only are we enthusiastic over being able to 
join forces with the great organizations, but never 
in our memory have farmers themselves been so 
stirred over any issue as they are over this ques¬ 
tion of taxation. Letters are pouring into our 
office every day backing up our program. Llere 
is a typical letter: 
very excellent ones. Therefore, to justify the existence 
of American Agriculturist, the publisher and editor 
must feel that it fills a place in the work and life of our 
people that cannot be filled just as well by some other 
paper. This means that when you have taken up one 
of our issues and have read it carefully, we want you 
to lay it down again feeling that it has gvien you a 
little bit better and more pleasant and more worth w r hile 
outlook on life than you had before reading it. 
We, whose responsibility it is to get out the paper, 
think also that it is something more than a publication 
containing good articles and stories. We are trying to 
make American Agriculturist a great service institu¬ 
tion, working on your individual and collective every-day 
problems, trying to help you find better markets, working 
to solve through our Service Bureau the thousand and one 
perplexing problems that you bring to us by letter; and, 
above all, laboring to bring you a little bit more happi^es^ 
the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for which 
are all striving. 
