Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Nebraska herald. (Plattsmouth, N.T. [Neb.]) 1865-1882 | View Entire Issue (July 10, 1879)
THE TAX CROP. Yearly Yield in the State of Nebraska. Address by Hon. J. Sterling Morton. At the Hastings Fair Yes terday. On a pleasant summer day more than twenty years ago I sat upon the high bluff of the Mis souri River, just north of Nebraska City, and gazing into the clear air which bathed the dis tant hill tops of Iowa and Missouri in a sort of shadowy sea. I wondered what impulse, what reason or what occult law brought me aud mine to this trans-Missouri realm ? Why had we come West? Would others follow? Would farms and villages and cities ever spring into life here? To a young man of twenty-three, full hope, imbued with a reasonable amount of ambition, and actuated by the supreme motive of founding and establishing a home, where health miiht dwell and happiness abide, those were very grave questions. But the great beauty and courage of youth is that it meets the profoundest problems of life with as little reluctance, and disposes of them with as little effort as one further along in years meets with and dispones of news paper slanders or the vaporings of village gos sips. And therefore, with that assuring exu berance which belongs to the vigorous vitality of early manhood, those queries were answered satisfactorily, by the mind upon which they had intruded. For while I looked up iuto the shimmering sky, I saw dancing among the clouds and capering with the sunbeams and sephyrs, ever so many Cottonwood seedB in their neat, white tulle dress. They swayed up ward and downward, and wafted here and there like embodiments of uneasy spirit. But the general drift was earthward and par ticularly towards a large sand-bar in the river, which the sunshine had not yet dried from its big bath of the June rise. And as they struck the currents of air that led down to the waters of the Missouri and swept along its tawny tide, their buoyancy died out, and one after another until hundreds and thousands could have been counted, they fell exhausted as to aerial life, upon the cool and refreshing surface of the moist nourishing sand. Then it occurred to me that humanity in all its migrations, in all its weary wanderings is governed by nature's laws, just as inflexibly aud, possibly, as un consciously as oottonwood seed by the law of gravitation to descend to the earth, and by capillary attraction with its silken lingers when lauded on the moist sand to draw nourish ment, send out roots, establish a trunk and be come a tree. And to-day standing at a point which was then in the Great American Desert, as un known and as uniudividualized as a single drop of water is at this moment in the midst of the Atlantic, I look down the avenue of those twenty years twenty years among a people blessed with robust health, twenty years of bountiful crops, twenty years of material pros perity which all the world cannot equal in de veloping results, aud behold a forest grown, cut down and utilized from the sand-bar, a Htate born, represented and taxed, where then only here and there a squatter's cabin made the prairie sod beautiful by contrast. The timber germs of that summer afternoon became a solid forest. The woodman's axe has mowed it down; moved it by manly muscle to the mills' revolving saws, and the result of natural law was thus formulated iu human homes. The Cottonwood seed which floated lazily aud listlessly upon the breath of summer in 1805, after going through the chemical pro cesses which nature prescribes, became first a sprout, then a sapling, a tree, a saw log and lastly part of a man's house. Ihe humanity, the young men aud women of 1854, 1855 and 1856, who drifted out from hearth Bides in the east to wander westward, and at last to settle down somewhere have since then passed in life's little day, from morning to noon and to evening, anil those who fastened themselves to the soil of Ne braska have become instead of squatters in a distant territory, citizens of a prosperous, cen tral aud strongly developing state. THE POTENTIAL MOTIVE. No man came hither without a motive. In each one there must have been an impelling power, a directing potency. And it is safe to say that ninety out of each hundred were gov erned by the desire to acquire, establish, build up and embellish a home. This ambition to make fast to the soil; to attach one's self to it like a tree, is the highest evolution of civi lized life, it has come to the world after many thousands of years of experience, and is a master motive in all that sort of humanity which enjoys making the earth brighter aud more beuutiful. Permanent homes adorned with the best efforts of their own ers, are the places wherein love of country and the grander love of human liberty are born and cherished into the strength which preserves and directs permanent and just governments, itobert Collier, of Unity Church, Chicago, has written many very true things. But among them all nothing is prettier or stronger, nothing truer, than this. In the heart of -a grain of wheat the miller tells me there is one spot of a golden cast which is the reason for a certain delicate golden hue. If you grind the wheat for bread, and if .you sow it, there lies the germ of all the harvests. What that germ is to the grain, the home is to the man. Strip away the enfolding and bare him to the heart of his bring, and there you rind the golden spot which colors nil and is the living ijrrm for ( -. yl tu " The best citizen is that one who comfor tableizes and adorns his home the best ill porportion to his means and loves those best whom that home roof covers and protects. The man who does the very lest he can for himself does the best he can for the coin in uni ty in which he lives and for the State. A pop ulation of men who are doing the very best they can for themselves, makes a community distinguished foJ its thrift, its sobriety, its decency and its prosperity. If every man who hears me to-day will put forth his best endeavor of mind and muscle to make for his wife and children a comfortable aud cosy home; aud if every wife and daughter and sou will make like endeavor as auxiliary aids to husband aud father, then will be com menced, in deed and truth, the foundations of public pross?rity. Mere encampment upon these prairies, whether in tents of canvas or shauties of wood, can never beget wealth, thrift and contentment. Savages camp, bar barians make no permanent abodes, plant no grovas, put out no orchards, and have no homes. But refined and cultivated men every where direct present effort and self-denial to tht, end that a home may be secured and embel lished. It is the temple where the triumphs of civilization aud enlightenment are gathered by the toil of brain and muscle aud gilded by the sunshine of souL It is the inner sanctuary of patriotism ; the conservatory of good mor als, aud the real source of honest and just forms of popular govern ment. It should be the earliest aspiration of child hood and youth; the tenderest and most sacred charge of manhood, and the profoundest con solation of honorable old age. No man can be homeless and happy, and no people prosperous who fail to build up permanent and contenting firesides. All these productive prairies which only ten years since were blank and beauti ful as a starless sky have been reclaimed from solitude by the plow, spangled with groves, orchards, cottages and mansions, until now tidy and cheerful homes bedeck them on every band, and stars in the heavens are not brighter on a cloudless night in September, The civilized motive born of education and good morals, which inspires mankind to make homes, is thus found to be the primary pioneering wworiitiUiiim-mw.. lauds W setllemoi't That master motive brought you here wr !m-hed crops from untried soils and, with the magic of pluck and labor, caused your bab lotions to rise in the landscape, ai quietly th& almost as quickly as a ship's shadow i i fbeuulit Sea.' Hardly a person in the no ami yi my voice this moment can be found, wj.j has not a tender memory about an old home somewhere in the East, in the West, or North, ofr South, perhaps away over the great ocevl an old home wheie a father and brothers jod sisters, and over and above all, a mother, ts wont to greet and caress. No matter bni humble, how poor that home may have bee i, it made you glad in childhood, and its mtuii rites make you better of morals and tenderer jl heart in middle life. Even t tutrials and struggles against adverse fortune; fear parents then made taught you wisdom J-Vifl self-reliance. And all the chival ry of all the cavaliers cannot equal the zealous will aud honest courage that welled up in your heart whn you heard your father or mother. in th: o (1 "iomP, t!l how hard the, world and fortu j. t;ied i ...rl;. t : Inst Hem " and thei- ! u' vr.n . e , .- r, ; (:: C. of i:l : - - - Ai:. I now - :. i :.u..-j ol Uiose old hoc . t ,d laid down to rest. So you and I have nvtd long enough to find ont that a home in this world, and the hope of a Heaven in the next, art the consummate consolations of hu manity, and we ourselves have become the builders and heads of homes. Aud a 'our early homes have tinged our char acters, d j-cted our ambitions, and formulated the met! ods of our very lives, either for good or ill, wt an now see clearly how grave and far reaching are the influence which we shall from these Nebraska homes indelibly impress upon those cldtdren whom nature has bequeathed us. rh4 resposibilitiea cannot be avoided. They h nd be realized and discharged with manly it-ai thoughtful courage, and an un flinching bjdelity to truth and right. Not the fear of pnalty, not the dread of eternal tor ments, far the inculcation of a sentimental Co ward li wiliht """"F1' tr dodge by the doors oi prisousiiere aud hells hereafter, can make Dome uesirauie, nor tuese children within their precincts good hearted and honorable-minded. But a hearty admira tion for truth as truth and right as right, is a wholesome element in parental character, which, when dominant, makes children indus trious, temperate and honest. A firm faith that happiness is found only in truth and in right-doing aud that honor and a liar are never partners fixes a pride of character which buoy up a man on the right course, keep him straight in honest ways, through adversity and tempta tion, when the fear of death and hell has faded ont of sight and importance. A good name is a motive of life. "It is a reason for that great encampment we call existence." While yon are building the home of to-morrow, build up also that kind of soul and character that can sweet ly rest ou home's pillow dreaming of no pen alty and reflecting upon no aveuging retribu tions for violated laws. STRAIGHT CLEAR TIMBER. Now let us go back to that cotton-wood for est on the Missouri river. While nature's labo ratory was pouring iuto the sandbar all the cunning chemicals which deftly combined con stitute timber, those occult laws which govern the migrations of humanity were slowly but surely aggregating a commonwealth in Nebras ka. But when the forest was grown and the pioneer went into it for dimension timbers, he always selected with oare the straightest trees in order to iret for the home he was building what he called clear stuff. He never selected a tiee because it grew iu a peculiarly colored soil, nor because it seemed weakly, nor because it was crooked. He picked out each stick be cause of its own peculiar merits and its adapt ability to his purpose aud not l!cause ll stooa on n particular platform of earth, nor be muse cottonwoods were in the majority And then the same man, having collected with such cautious judgment all the material for his domicile, aud taken such pains to ex clude all iruarled and rotten sticks from its niniiKinpiit iarts. lends his voice and vote t th (fetahlishment over this home, of a civil governmeut. to give its protection to property life and liberty. And it is passing strange that in rhoosiinr timber upon which, and out of which, the political fabric is to be formed man as a rule ceases to be governed by judg ment or controlled by reason. . Individual de cisions, based urjon loeical reasoning are thrown aside, and the bat-blind dogmas and nronunciamentoa of partvism and cauensism become imperious dictators. Out of the forests of citizens, party and caucus choose the timber for the governmental fabric. The choice is made not infrequently of rotten- hearted stuff, coarse-grained, shaky, crooked tnfl irnsrled. Those clear characters, which have adorned homes aud lighted up home-Ufe with the glow of joy and happiness, are too often not used at all in the political fabric, but entirely over looked. And that is your fault and my fault, the fault of all men who are now, or ever have been so tied to party, so welded to party preju- dice, that individual judgment and conscience is surrendered a sacrifice to the gods ot caucus. Nature hurried nothing in forming the Kerui, the tree aud the timbers out of which we builded our houses. The spring shower, the summer sunshine and the winter frost and snow came along leisurely, one after the other for many years, and rootlets and buds aud fo liage, grew again and again to make the per fect solid trunk, clear and straight. But po litical human nature differs from those slow processes and hastens the growth of statesmen timber, with a velocity which no forester, no florist dare even emulate in a propagating gar den. And so men are oftentimes selected to make laws, to expound laws, and to execute laws, who never read laws.never understood and nev er obeyed laws. And thus we come to consider THE YEARLY CROP OF TAXES IN NEBRASKA "AND WHO BOWS IT?" A TAX is when righteous and legitimate merely a lawful demand of the government upon the citizens for a service rendered. That service is the protection of the life, property and lib erty of the citizen. Any other tax than such a one is not legitimate, and is not righteous. The levy of a tax upon the property of all citizens by mere majority voting, out of which to donate money or bonds to a minute minor ity, called a corporation, in order that the aforesaid minute minority may construct a railroad, is an unjust, inexcusable, fraudulent aud swindling tax. It is taking the property of the minority citizens, in the form of cash, without due process of law. Nebraska ought to have had a constitution absolutely prohibit ijg the voting of subsidies in county, city and precinct bonds to railroad or other corpora tions. Had the people selected timber for the construction of Nebraska's fundamental law with as much care and judgment as they have chosen building stuff for their houses and barns, it would have been impossible to have voted as has now already been voted more than TEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS principal and twenty millions of dollars inter est upon this State as a diabolical gratuity to private corporations. 1 hat one mistake in forming the organic law of Nebraska will cost the Commonwealth in principle and interest MANY MILLION'S OF POI.LARS. Then aud there was sown seed for an annual crop of taxes, which will equal a dollar an acre upon every farm in the State before its pestilent productive power shall have been ex hausted. And those millions of dollars have, unlike natural laws, harried things up. They have hatchens railroads as the steam hen hatch ed chicken at the State fair, with great expedi tion and facility, and with no well-arranged method of feeding and nourishing them. But those millions of dollars would have put under tillage MILLIONS OF ACRES OF LAND, and the teeming products of that land would have called capital into building more rail roads in the State than we have yet gotten. Slow and sure are the methods and processes of those Natural Lawn which call the oak from its germ-cell in the acoru up into the sky, to wave its glory ot verdure in the sunshine; and swing its brawny arms in the tumult of the storm. And equally slow and sure are those economic laws which call humanity out of crowded old lands into the peopleless new lauds, to make human homes, good names and pursue happiness. And as man cannot amend nor improve Nature's laws in formulating the oak, ueither can he violate to advantage the economic law. Therefore the State Constitu tion which provides for making donations of money or bonds which must be paid in money ut of the pockets of the manv to the corpo- r ate wallets of the few, is the greatest tax- seeding machine of the Commonwealth. And its perpetual aud perennial crop will be do the best you can burdeusoniely bountiful for tweuty years to come. Seed time is always present under tBis abomination. During this very summer a dozen counties have thus plant ed for tu. crops which are certain to mature and furnish a wonderful yield of anxiety, op pression, want and distress. Droughts may come; grasshoppers may fall like avalanches upon your fields and corn and wheat may fail to till your garners, but the sinking fund tax crop is certain as death, inex orable as fate, for neither summer drouth. winter frosts nor chinch bug, nor grasshopper can interpose to stop its full and fatal fruition. 1 lie Constitution ol -Nebraska was constructed iu haute and badly botcim! as to details. It made possible this vast early planting of tax crops, io individual citizens, credit and the ght aud power to ruu in debt is a dangerous thing. It, injudiciously exercised, has ruined tUoiisands of good men. l'crsonal debts make til-.' citizen a slave, and vast public debts make towns, cities, counties aud stales nothing more nor less than complex machines for the manu facture of sinking funds with which to pay in terest. The present organic law which is the great fertilizer of the tax crop needs mending. The power to ruu into debt when vested iu a majority a mere mob is far more dangerous than when it is limited to individuals. The demagogueical and mendacious statement that a majority is always right is absurd. The old adage that the voice of the people is always the voice of God is a lie, and a slander on Qod. The devil voices himself in a vote for county bonds for railroads, so distinctly, that when tax-paying day comes round one can smell sul phur in the air. The voice of the people when it declares iu favor of public monies for pri vate purposes is always the voice of the devil. And hell is always experienced by property owners as long as the debt lives and draws in terest. DISTRICT SCHOOL BONDS. The law providing for the issue of district bonds for schools is another and most pro lific source of the yearly tax crop. Bungling law makers are responsible for its existence aud you, the people, are responsible for having given political vitality to such law-makers. They were Bpawned by your ballots, spewed out of your ballot-boxes. Aud thus to-day school districts, in Nebraska; have their bonds out for more than 8IX MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, and upon them a yearly crop of taxes amount ing to six hundred thousand dollars is ex pected to be garnered by the eastern bond holders. The people, who prate of liberty and equali ty, thus forge chains for themselves; make themselves slaves to that relentless and extor tionate task-master called interest and sinking fund. You sow taxes ever time you vote for incompetent or dishonest men to ocenpy the positiou of law maker or law officer. And from the yearly crop which will now aggregate more than a million dollars for sinking fund purposes alone in this State, it is reasonable to conclude that our affairs have been badly and bunglingly managed for some years. Under the act entitled "An Act to establish a system of public instruction in the State of Nebraska." which passed and took effect February loth, 1869, another vast pile of iuter-I stacked up. The limitation of school district indebtedness in that loose-jointed enactment is five thousand dollars. (See section 30, page 966, of Revised Statutes for 1873.) In Otoe county we have more than eighty districts, and had the full limit of indebted ness been reached we should owe for school property more than FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. Because school districts can or may borrow on district bonds, we have built school bouses extravagantly and wastcf ully all over the state. Edifices large enough for populous sections iu the oldest and richest states have been erected in sparsely peopled districts in the newest settlements of Nebraska, and among those who can ill afford the extravagance. Bonds have been created by the votes of the mm tax-payers, and handed down as a calami tous legacy of bondage and distress to the tax payers who succeed them as the real owners and developers of the tax-blighted soil. L'u drr thie nefarious legislation has been sown a direful crop -of taj:es;nd the sowing still con tinues. And under Hi is same statute it is possible to almost bankrupt the people in every newly made school district. It is time to wipe out that part of the law wbicn ren ders such ruin and waste imminent. It is time for you to demand of the law-makers, your servants, solid safeguards and inhibitory bul warks against this constant inundation of debt. The credit system in constructing school houses has cost unnecessarily MILLIONS Or DOLLARS in prirepal and will cost millions more in interest, and it is high time to restrict or al together abolish it. The loss of permanent school funds loaned upon balloon hotels in Lincoln, upon chnrch structures of doubtful value in Nebraska City and upon the fancy farms of favorites in divers and sundry places, while it aggregates many thousands of dollars, is only a uickle compar tj, th vu.t Hums which have been snnan- the act named. The malappropriation ot trie permanent school fund may have been made by a corrupt executive, but the School District debts have too often been created by corrup tion among the citizens themselves. The power to create debt is a primary cause of cor ruption everywhere, and the more it is re stricted the safer are the people and the f reerer the homes from oppressive taxation. Ever since the panic of 1873 when truth as to values asserted its supremacy industry has been fighting against debts and their conse quences all over the country. And did not humanity have so short a memory as to its adversities, one might conclude that hence forth the people would dodge debt-making forever. But the present summer has wit nessed the weakness of human memory in this regard, all over Nebraska. Because wherever a chance has been given to create new and larger debts for railroads it has been taken with alacrity, with relish and public rejoicing. If some saint should orgauize a new system of religion and, in it, make Debt the Devil and semi-annual interest the quenchless tire which consumes the savings of the people, and then hold a long and successful revival in Nebraska, he would con fer a greater temporal blessing upon the people than have all the law-makers to date. Even present systems of theology mention no taxation in the hereafter and to one who has paid State taxes in Nebraska, from the inception of the commonwealth, the tax less!) ess of Heaven and its entire freedo n from bonded indebtedness may te regarded as among its highest beatitudes. EDUCATION is a good thing. The State should supply means to all its citizens of obtaining a common school education. Every child should be taught in the District Schools to read aud spell cor rectly the English language ; to write it legibly aud grammatically. Aud in the same school geography aud arithmetic should also be thor oughly inculcated. But when the common wcath has gone thus far in the enlightenment of its youth it should stop. Higher education, such us the college or university is presumed to furnish should be left to private enterprise and individual effort. As a rule. State Univer sities have been State swindles and distin gnished failures. The University of Nebraska has been no ex ception to trie rule. The edifice tor that insti tution was constructed before a single student in Nebraska was prepared for a college course; before a preparatory school, or a graded school nad been established in the State. The prick and mortar out of which that edifice was erect ed reeked with rottenness, with bribe-bearing contracts, from its foundation to its dome. It cost more than $150,000 and was at once peo pled with a corps of professors, in command of a chancellor, whose principal labors were in drawing fine fat salaries from the public pock et. It was needed by the State just as much as a threshing machine is needed by the home steader before he has sown an acre of wheat or broken a rod of prairie; or as much as a ci der mill is required by one who has no trees on his farm except willows and cottonwoods. - The State did not need the University then; and it would be better off educationally , and financially without it now. It is to-day, and always has been, a place notwithstanding the presence of one or two worthy teachers in fected with personal jealousies, petty squab bles, literary adventurers and costly humbugs a place whence there is ever ascending to the public nose a strong smell of pensioned imbe cility. It has cost since its erection (over and above what its crumbling sand-stone founda tions and their superstructure amounted to) the following sums: UNIVERSITY FUND. Disbursements In 1869 aud 1870 $ 222 80 1871 1872 64,621 22 1873 1875 1877 1874 80,292 45 1876 37,858 60 1878 36,290 64 $189,285 Balance on baud, Nov. aotli, 1878, $12,642.16. And for more than three hundred thousand dollars which have been taken from the pop ular pockets, what have you to show after de ducting the one or two conscientious instruct ors, save a badly constructed building, a lean laboratory, a few stuffed zoological specimens. some geological curiosities, an exceedingly poor library, a few sleek and puffy professors and a perpetual muss about and between the chancel lor and the faculty a constant airing of dirty linen year in aud year out, by the legislative laundrymeu at Lincoln. If your son ambitiously desires a collegiate course you ought if able to give it to him, or he as many another has can earn it himself. Iu my judgment and 1 have pondered the matter seriously the Htate has undertaken no busi ness which it botches and bungles more com pletely than it botches and bungles the man agement of the so-called higher institutions of learning. The detailed expenses ot the State University are not within my reach; but I know enough about them and their character to state consci entiously that I firmly believe their publica tion, truthfully itemized, from the inception of the institution to the present time would as tound and disgust the tax-payers of the State. They have been often injudicious, frequently extravagant, and sometimes, I am afraid, crim inal. The institution has added far more to your yearly crop of taxes than it has to the means of disseminating intelligence. It may have pecuniarily or politically bene fited a few men; but it has been of no general usefulness to the great majority of tax-pavers. The District School, economical, plain, practi cal and thorough, is the people s school. 1 he University, ornate, Utopian and super ficial, is, too often, an asylum for decaped pulpiteers and plotting politicians. A major ity of professors in State Universities and Normal Schools are entirely ignorant of prac tical affairs, and have frequently been appoint ed on account of sectarian bias, for political reasons, or because they have failed in other avocations. Such men are unfit to be entrust ed with the formation of the mental, moral and business character of youth. THE NORMAL SCHOOL is the next consumer of taxes which should be popularly investigated. It has abnormally prepared for teaching a number of Nebraska youth, and it has cost the people the following sums and how much more I am not able to say. But it has been a museum in which to col lect the relatives of prominent political per sons and imbue them with vitality at the pub lic expense. In shoit, it has been a conven ient receptable for the extra sisters, cousin and aunts of over-worked statesmen. The cheerful figures following are only a portion of the extra tax crop which has ripen ed from this institution. NOltMAL SCHOOL. APPROPRIATIONS ANI EXPENDITURES. H menial term of 1869 and 1879. $ 10,000.00 1871 aud 1872. 10,740.71 1872 aud 174. 24,632.00 1875 and 1876. 3u,8".5.:r, 1877 aud 178. 24,842.01 $ 9,986.60 10,743,43 24,539.09 29,016,44 19,874.72 S100.C10.fi8 S94.151.28 Dormitory building tax appropria tion $20,976,63 The educational system by the State should be restricted to the common school, and that should be made strong, economical, thorough and practical. Denominations, private indi viduals and incorporated iustitutions will sup ply higher education at lessetw. and in belter foi 111 and more satisfactorily than can the Com mon wealth. Au incorporated Society for the Education of the youth of Nebraska," could furnish all the .Normal School advantages and all the I ui ver ify culture tins State now enjoys, for fifty cents on the dollar of the present cost and then declare ten per ceut dividends semi-annually. As to the style of teachers manufactured at Peru, incredulous persona may inquire of the County Superintendents who have examined them. Reliable information leads me to con clude that very many utterly incompetieut instructor have been licensed by the Nebraska Normal School, and that the institution has cost vastly more than it is worth. It is good, however, as a tax seeder, and furnishes food for favored tax-eaters. You, the people. are its proprietors, and you can restrict or enlarge its demands for cash at your own option. The taxes taken from your Homes and their comforts whatever goes into the capacious maws of the University, and its competing consumer at Bern. A GRUMBLER. Smart statesmen, gentlemen in high position will call this the voice of a grumbler, a malcon tent, a fault-tinder. But that will not change facts and figures, nor controvert the truth. Nebraska came iuto the Amirican Union with the boast that she was debtless and had twelve thousand two hundred and sixty-five dollars and forty cents on hand. That fact was exultingly paraded by the out going territorial executive, and exuberantly aired by the distinguished economist who succeeded him as Governor of the new State in 18C7. Patriotic place-hunters declared that the State government would cost not more, proba bly, than twelve thousand a year, though some suckling statesmen, even then, confessed that possibly onr annual expense for State hood might reach $30,000, But as we have in herited on coming to State age 500,000 acres of internal improvement lands, seventy-two sec tions of university lands, betweeu forty and fifty thousand acres of a penitentiary, aud an endless acreage of school lauds, it was declared that State taxes would amount to only a trifle compared to the blessings which would inure to us from the honor ot being represented by the best and most marked ability in Congress. But the first years of 1867-8 dispelled the il- usioti of cheap government by drawing from the people of Nebraska more than a quarter of million of dollars with which to maintain the dignity and exalted character of the State government. lint the facts aud figures are: Jk4HatJiiLAiaAhAHOM QlimiDr-J- March 1st, istii l ,li5 40 Receipts and disburse ments for triennial term 1867 aud 1868. 1869 and 1870. 1871 and 1872. 1873 and 1874. 1875 aud 1876. 1877 and 1877. 250,963 17 946,345 69 1,183,074 27 1,469,408 04 1,459,306 18 1,908,337 40 I 211,948 48 960,078 70 1,022,333 70 1,433, 152 28 1,369,796 Ml 1,772,209 00 Total Receipts .... $7,229,700 15 Total Disbursements $679,518 16 Balance November 30th, 1878 $460,181 90 Note. The State Treasury shows nothing an to the proceeds of about six thousand lots in Lincoln, which are supposed to have been converted into cash at an average of about one hundred dollars each, by State Commissioners Butler, Kennard and - Gillespie. The State should have from said sales realized more than half a million dollars, but the realization is not historically recorded. The above figures as well as those concern ing the University and Normal School, came to me with the following letter: Statb or Xcbrabka, 1 Treasury Department, Li scout, Sept. 6th, 1879. ) J. Sterling Morton, Nebraska City, Neb. : Dear Sir Replying to yonrs of late date, relative to cost of State government, I have to say that the within showing appertains to transactions with this office, 10 far a my Unit permit me of compil ing." Your first inquiry I am unable to comply with, and I would refer you to the Auditor of Public Ac counts for statement of appropriations. Schedule "A" will show the receipts and disbursements 01 tlus or flce from organization of State to Nov. 30th, 1878, date of last report. ' Very Kespectlouy lours, U. M. Babtlbtt, State Treasurer. A little emphasis'on the expression, "so far a my Hum prrmitt of rtimpiltiu renders the State Treasurer an exceedingly suggestive writer. From his figures it will be observed that as the purchasing power of dollars has increased, the number of dollars required .lJVMl-ha ..State Wftmnnnnl haw ! increased, wuiie me riprusni ui your homes have decreased, as the circulat ing medium 01 tne country lenueu towards an equality with the world s money, gold, the expenses of the State have increased. It took more greenbacks worth only eighty cents on the dollar to buy bread and clothes for your Household in 1873, than it takes now of 100 ceut dollars,- in the blessed year of resumption, 1879. But the political household alone is maintained at an ever in creasing ccMt in Nebraska, it seems, whether dollars are under par or at par. Thus the argest taxes for State purposes amounting to nearly two millions of dollars were gathered during 1877 and 1878. But you can obtain the figures yourselves and - read and re-read them wondering how the tax payers sleep under those perpetual pocket-pickings, and admiring the stalwart genius which in governing less than five hundred thousand people, can so adroitly dispose of such vast sums, and not arouse the fatigued citizens to wakefulness and action. A mere trifle 'er seven millions of dollars is all that the Htate Treasurer' time "permits of compiling." Seven millions of dollars for gov erning a population, twelve years, which aver aged less during the time, than two hundred thousand souls. Seven millions of dollars! Wbat have you as citizens to show for the out- Your lands donated by the General Govern- ment too, where are they with the exception of the School lands gone with the seven mil lions to show how much sweeter it is to live for one's country than to die for it? It is a knotty problem to solve where the lauds have gone, though the smell of soil perfumes the state 1'emtentiary, as follows: Acres of land 43,118 " unsold 1,676 41.442 Acres realized $ 133,946.00 Amount from tax eat he red from your pockets 201, 988.36 Total $ 341.y34.ac There is consolation iu that unsold land but it is diluted with the suspicion that the state owes much on the penitentiary, which it must yet liquidate, and furthermore, con sol tion is neutralized with the faith that five hundred thousand dollars will fail to finally pay off in full the crafty citizens who have constructed that institution, the necessity of which is so lucidly demonstrated by their ex istence. In order that you may officially know con cerning some of these crop taxes, 1 give you here the following letter from the auditor of the state. State or Nebraska, IRASKA, 1 : I), 1879. ) , AUDITOR H DEPARTMKN Lincoln, Sejt. HI, J. Sterling Morton, Nebraska City, Neb. Dear Sib Yours of 8th insU, at hand. Contents noted. In reply, you will find below a statement show ing the appropriations maUe by the Nebraska Legisla ture, since tne organization of the Htate to the present time, as appears ou the books on me in this othoe. Iu the amount appropriated In 1869 and 18.0, aptx-nrs the following items. Dome to Capitol, S10.568.12 Capitol feuciiur, (Trading, ornamenting the grounds. $7,Swg.9; building of lusaue Asylum, $142,M)5, lu cludiug architect's fees; I'uiverwity building, $157,57 8.- 2t, including architects tees ; ou auc t I'emtentiary, $48,262.50. The appropriations from 1867 to 1872, cannot vouch for their aorurmcy, but can for the years following, viz.: 1873 to 188U inclusive, as the books were kept In a diflerent manner. Ihe following are the appropriations : 1867 and 1868 $129,040 51 1869 " 1870 636,070 16 1871 " 1872.. 395,816 53 1873 " 1874 4itM,314 71 1875 " 1876 726,163 37 1877 " 1878 613,824 57 1879 " 1880 7(W,(xa 1 Which includes erection of a Capitol wing $75,0(10 To wings, Insane Asylum 39,000 A State itaform School 10,00l Work Shop for Deaf aud Dumb Institute 3,000 The appropriations for 1877 and 1878 were for years and 3 mouths. In relation to registration of County Bonds, I send the Auditor's report, ending Nov. 30, 1876 aud 1878, wmcn will give tne information desired. In my statement or appropriations 1 Have simply mentioned those that this Department draws aguuist. It does not include transfers from one fund to an other the bonded indebtedness investments of edu cational funds, apportionments of school moneys, A: These transfers are made by the State Treasurer. Uespecuully, sc., W. Likptkk, Auditor. J. H. Alforo, Deputy. The item of ten thousand five hundred and sixty-eight dollars and twelve cents, for that wart-like dome upon the State Capitol, is prob ably the baldest bit of tax-devouring one can find in a long hunt for curiosities of that style, Mr. Auditor has written a cautious epistle, and evinces a business sagacity when he declares relative to appropriations from 1867 to 1782 : I cannot vouch for their accuracy, which causes me to profoundly respect his good judg ment. His letter will bear publication aud pe rusal among the tax-payers, who will be pleased to learn that formerly the books were kept in a different manner. The capacity which has cultivated Nebraska for its annual yield of tax-crops is strong and adroit. Compared to it the skill and industry which tills your fields and harvests their anuu al bounty is mere idiocy and idleness. Upon every ear of corn, every kernel of wheat, and every domestic animal, even to the very dog which watches your stables, the tax descends with unerring regularity and constantly in creasing weight. Even the chinch-bug-and the grasshopper fail to successfully compete with the assessors in the struggle for the re sult of your daily toil. Those pestilent insects come now and then and levy ou yonr products; but the visitation ot the tax-man is as regular as the flight of time, and as inexorable as fate. His harvest ripens whether your fields are Darren or fruitful; and debt and interest upon debt, will thrive and mature when all other harvests may have blighted and per ished. But 1 cannot elaborate. It is my aim merely to suggest, and if 1 shall have arrested public attention as to the costly extravagance of local government and caused popular thought and investigation as to our annual crop of taxes and who sows it, I will be content. Therefore 1 pass on to the BONDED DEBT OF THE STATE. The former constitution of Nebraska limited the bonded debt of the State to fifty thousand dollars. The present constitution prohibits a bonded debt of more than one huudred thous and dollars. But the following letter from the state treasury illuminates the fact that Ne braska law-makers have in some mysterious manuer created a bonded debt of nearly half a million of dollars in spite of the fundamental inhibition. State of Nebraska, 1 Treasurer's Office, Lincoln, Sept. 9Ui, 1879. ., Sterling Morton, Xebruska City: Dear Sir: Iu answer to yours of the Hth hist., I have to report the bonded indebtedness ol the state of Nebraska, as follows, to-wit : Kellet bonds, issue of 1875, $50,000, i-eiiii-autiiial, at 10 per cent. Funding bonds, issue of 1877, mature 1K'I7, jil'l, 267.35, Menu annual, 8 per cent. Total amount ot bonded indebtedness, 8499, 267.35 Very respectfully, O. M. Babtlktt, State Treasurer. Thus we provide a small interest crop of five thousand dollars on our ten per coot, bouds, the proceeds of which Governor Saunders, Mr. Church Howe and another gentlemen, conver ted 111U1 eed and subsistence for grAsshopier ed settlers 011 the frontier. And we glean annually the small sum from our fields of about thirty-five thousand dollars to pay as interest upon those mysterious col laterals called State Sinking Fund l'-ond at eight per cent. A Nebraska State Sinking I'u nd Bond is not uulike hoarding house La.-li and city sausages, because nobody can tell how or where they have been made, or what may lie their component parts. And in this connection you may call up an investigation, which the last session of the leg islative assembly engineered, as to cash on hand in the State Treasury. That mild aud gentle search of the public coiitribiition-lsjx showed about four hundred thousand dollars funds on hand aud deposited in seventeen country banks. It also proved that those banks paid for those State menies tour er cent, interest to somelxxly else than the State itself. Now, if any of you farmers owe four thousand dollars, which is Treasurers Ofkicf, 1 Nkhbaska City, -Sept 101b, .. Sterling Morton, Nebraska City, Xrb.: Dear Sir I hud according to the tax lists in this office, that you have paid taxes on the N K 4 of 7, 14, for the last ten years, as follows: 1878 $ 89,27 1877 KH.16 1876 1M3.64 1K75 2 19.58 1874 2:.0O 1873 152.811 1872 107.K6 1871 124.70 1870 17X61 1H69 190.95 $1552.27 Yours truly, N. L. Simpson, County Treasurer. drawing ten per cent interest, and have four thousand on hand which you deposit in bank for four per cent, interest (and allow some other person to draw and consume that inter est) everybody who hears of it will declare you either insane or idiotic But such a course would be only the Sts,te financial management. emulated and imitated by the citizen. That is the financial management which would prove the private citizen a lunatic is, when controll ing the commonwealth, called marvelously cor rect statesmanship. Lut says one however large the yearly crop of taxes in Nebraska, may be, 1 having only a quarter section of land to pay upon cannot be burdened thereby. Let us see bow that may be That certificate merely shows that upon the farm where I live taxes have been paid in ten greater than I paid a pre -emptor for the entire tract. And if taxation is equal through out the State every farm bas paid according ly, in proportion to its valuation. The farmer foots the bulk of the bills for the Common wealth, by paying the taxes upon his lands, hi products, his cattle, bis swine, and other domestic animals. And every farmer who will bunt up his tax receipts and examine them closely will ascertain that be tends every year, more and more, to the condition of a mere tenant, as his taxes to State, County and School District, every year, come neare- and nearer to the full rental value of his lands. The problem aa to bow much the citizen can afford to pay for State governmental protection to bis life, property and liberty in Nebraska is one upon which I wish to steadily fix your minds and : tor it solution inspire you to candidly cipher and seriously consider. The tax-makers, tax-gatherers and tax-eaters are having aa much fun at your expense, and as good a time generally, as aid those cruel boys who threw stones at the frogs. The frogs died. And the able alacrity with which the latest collection of law-givers at Lincoln made appropriations from the pu'ilic money, com mands the admiration of all the contractors for State building; all the public jobbers who are recipients of favors, and all those persons who are immediately benefited by the dis bursements. But to economically-minded, practical, tax-paying citizens the appropria tion for the wing of a new Capitol, of seventy five thousand dollars, at this time reems a hasty and needless expense. It looks badly and it smells badly whenever any appropria tion is passed by the outlay of money either for outside or inside influence among members of the Legislature. The bill of last winter which gave that seventy-five thousand dollars extra levy of taxes upon yonr property was so passed. More than enough money to buy and improve any quarter section of laud in this State, was paid ont to pass that bill and create that tax. And the people elected the bad men who cguld be bribed and the aeak. cuufv! oe Wuecuibu or ouiiied in that Legislature. It appropriated ont of the peo ples' pockets about eight hundred thousand dollars and had the session been longer the steals would have been bigger. The people pay for every rascal in office a heavy premium, and for every incompetent, a burdensome pen alty in increased taxes. It is time to call a halt upon the riot of tax-makers, tax-collectors and tax-consumers everywhere. the remedy. All State bonds, all county bonds, all pre cinct bonds and all school district bonds which are unimpeachably and legally valid, should be called in and refunded at a lower rate of interest. No State bond should draw more than five, no county more than six, no precinct or school district more than seven per cent, in terest. The power to make more public debts, except for the common defence and the en forcement of the laws should be abolished. In the language of Justice Cooley, of the Supreme Court of Michigan, "Many serious errors may be committed and many wrongs dn e in the exercise of the power to tax. which the parties wronged must submit to, because the courts can afford them no redress whatever. All injuries which result from an exercise of political or legislative authority are to be in cluded in this category ; and these are often the most serious, which in matters of taxation, the people are visited with. In all such cases, the authority of the judiciary is confined to an inqniry into the jurisdictional question, and if it aps"ars that tlic political or legislative body has kept within the limits of its authority, the judiciary must pause there ami admit its incompetency to inquire into wrongs which, within those limits, may havelwen committed. The wrongs which spring from errors ou the part of assessors are, in a large pro(Mrtioii of all the cases, as little susceptible of correction, unless the Legislature shall have provided a remedy by statute. C'-ourtsof Equity have but a limited jurisdiction, extending to few cases besides those in which the iuielling motive oil the part of assessors has Iw-n to do injust ice and inflict an injury. 1'hr t'hirf jrntt-i tntn ' thr most tit ti'Hl 'Vw multhi in thr iitltll it uer tiiitl iitti'jritif ttf fulf ill' ojliws, ami wfwrn tfiriJ'uif a I'm nj't'it tin y ili, tlie injury must prtne fivpu-nthj inrmin-Wc." el dJ C. w b. m It ol wl se ve si. ra sil la ex th th m (7. or in lie in tn of cli ey a ha bt fin aw th. tni th. str Mi Cr;. oc Sli, BOl pa i sc mu Bill Wl, far UK' BOl pe. aH ev m goi he thJ in reid tin co 1 mill th. no ku (in Eu bet the ttoi fan car wot Cal D arri to-u licp publ J to th Hale T calls Df Stat idat U tl (i VOW ud wli son, ew tin the as the Ira er he uud Ho and sect J. Alt. the re ion enti reti for in a isl to A Sri an. 1 1 tioi Jot Sta H oth wa-1 1 wa- hri ouii cat 1 civi new in of bri in t for Fro can fall tii- ra den I paipt Start jorn; Tl was OI II whi our app dici and on ben me in 1 grai Un to I biiit Hoi Tl ca cl. pal fo c. st St tl tel 1 1 a o C -1 of A b it 1