The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 28, 1917, Page 6

When Economy Isn’t Economy How the Cry of Lower Taxes Has Fooled Wisconsin People and Let the Reactionaries Capture the State By E. B. FUSSELL. HE state of Wisconsin has just completed at Madison one of the finest capitol buildings in the United States. It occupies a site comprising four city blocks and cost more than $7,000,000. The capitol is built in the form of a cross. In one arm is the assembly, in another the senate, in the third the su- preme court, and in the fourth the leg-. islative reference library, while other state offices are scattered all around. The building is finished inside with marble—black, white, red, green and chocolate colored, brought from all parts of the world. Beautiful mural paintings and statuary decorate the halls. The brass art work cuspidors in the lobbies are currently reported to have cost $64 apiece, but the writer was told by persons who seemed to know that this was false, that they_ really cost only $26 apiece, because the state bought so many of them; they probably would have cost $64 apiece if they had been bought separately. At the center of the cross, where the four arms of the capitol join, is a ro- tunda, topped with a magnificent dome that towers-toward the sky. The dome alone cost $1,000,000. And on top of the dome, visible for miles around, is a gilded female figure. They call this lady “Miss Forward,” “Forward” being the Wisconsin -state motto, adopted many years ago and in- tended to tell the world that Wiscon- sin is a progressive state. But when they came to place the statue on top of the capitol dome a hot argument de- veloped over-which way the lady should face. Some thought she ought to bes looking toward the University of Wis- consin, a mile to the west. thought she ought to be facing the ris- ing sun, and they had the most active sort of bickering over it. HOW STAND-PATTERS GOT BACK IN OFFICE Men who believe in progress are Just as badly divided in Wisconsin today as those who fought over the way Miss Forward ought to be facing. The ad- vocates of the rising sun’ finally wen out when it came to placing the statue on the capitol dome, but the men un- der the capitol dome are still ‘unde- cided as to which way is forward. Some think it is north, some south, some east and some west. And as a result Wis- consin is not going forward. It is not making any more progress than the statue anchored to the top of the building. There was a time, ten or a dozen years ago, when Wisconsin was blazing the path of progress for the nation; when it really deserved the motto “For- ward,” but that time has passed. Those Others Wisconsin’s New $7,000,000 State Capitol at Madison. who want to go forward lack leader- ship. They lack organization. Most of all, they lack a definite plan of ac- tion. As a result a band of reaction- aries, intent on preserving the rights of “legitimate enterprise,” which means the “rights”.of Big Business to take profit from producer and consumer, have captured the government of the state. . The cry that the reactionaries raised to get office was “Economy,” the bai- tlecry raised by standpatters in every age and nation, whenever there is a de- mand for reform. FARMERS DIDN'T GET THEIR TAX LOWERED Taxes are high in Wisconsin, just as they are everywhere else. Wiscon- sin taxes average a little more than they do in some adjoining states. Pos- sibly one reason for this is that less than half of the land in the state is under cultivation. In northern Wis- consin are millions of acres of cut- —over lands. Land speculators bought them years ago from the timber com- panies that had logged them off, paying all the way from $2 or $3 per acre up to $10 an acre. They are trying to sell them now to farmers at $20 to $25 an acre. It costs anywhere from $25 to $50 an acre for the farmer to clear these lands after he moves on. The land company generdlly takes all the money it can get as first payment. After two or three years of struggle to get his land cleared and raise enough crops to meet 7 or 8 per cent interest payment, the farmer generally is compelled to move off, and the lands go back to the speculators. These lands, being uncultivated, pay compar- atively low taxes. The owners of ihe cultivated lands in the southern part of the state where land has real value, have to pay more taxes to make up the difference. : ; However, Governor Phillip, an ac- terests. PAGE SIX_ You will find the problem of the farmer the same everywhere, the problem of getting jus- tice in the markets and making elected public - servants serve the people instead of the Big In- The problem is acute in Wisconsin. Read about a state that pays $7,000,000 for a capitol but can’t ‘“‘afford” to retire a $2,000,- 000 bond-issue that is being paid up every four- teen years in interest and still is unpaid and ' drawing interest. : knowledged reactionary, got into office on the economy platform, calling at- tention to the high taxes farmers were paying and promising a reduction. Did the farmers get any advantage under the new administration? Not that anybody would notice. Total taxes paid in the state of Wisconsin during the year 1913, according to the state tax commission report, were $33,000,000. In 1914 they leaped to $41,000,000. In 1915 they were $42,000,000, and’ in 1916 they were $43,000,000; all this increase under an ‘‘economy” administration. Farmers in Wisconsin are up against the same sort of market problems as farmers in Minnesota or the Dakotas. The creamery industry is one of the big ones in the state. Just as the Dakota farmers have to send their grain to terminal elevators at Minneapolis and take Chamber of Commerce gradings, so the butter producers of Wisconsin have to send their butter to dairy ex- changes at Chicago and New York, and take the scoring that the butter trust representatives choose to give them. The butter goes through the hands of three or four middlemen be- tween the producer and consumer, and each takes his so-called ‘“legitimate” profit and as much speculative profit, besides, as he can squeeze out. Complaints of false scoring are .al- most universal; the butter producers have documentary proof going to show that the official scorers at New York and Chicago exchanges in reality are ready to give any score that the com- mission house buying the butter wants. OFFICIALS REFUSE TO OBEY THE LAW One of the big needs of the farmers of the state is more money to develop their properties. This is especially true in the northern part of the state, where 7 and 8 per cent are the prevail- ing interest rates. Demand for this re- sulted in the legislature in 1913 pass- ing a law directing the 2tate land com- missioners to lend trust.funds belonge ing to the commoan schools, university, agricultural college and normal schools, to farmers on first mortgages at 5 per cent. The law didn’t say that the state treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general, who comprise the board of state land commissioners, “‘might” do this, or that they could if they wanted to. It used the word ‘shall,” directing these officials spe- cifically to issue blanks and distribute them through the counties on which farmers might apply for loans. But one day, after the law went into effect, the treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general got together and held a meeting. After the meeting was over they announced that they had de- cided not to lend the trust funds to farmers, as provided by the law. The attorney general said he doubted whether the law was constitutional. The treasurer said there were enough - demands coming from the school dis- tricts for trust fund money so that they woudn't have enough for the farmers. Of course most of the school district bonds might have been sold on the open market. The school districts could get their money in this manner at a lower interest rate than the farmer could. But the real reason that there was no money in the trust funds for the farmers was that the state, way back in the civil war times, borrowed something over $2,000,000 at 7 per cent interest, For fifty-five years this loan has gone unpaid and the state has paid its 7 per cent interest annually paying back the entire principal every 14 years and being just as much in debt at the end of each 14 years as it was at the beginning. The last legislaturc made provision for the payment of $100,000 a year, which means that it will be 20 years more Lefore there wili be any money in the trust funds to loan to farmers. If the state had built only a $5,000,000 ' capitol and had used $2,000,000 to re- tire its 60-year debt to the trust funds, the trust funds would have had $2,000,- 000 to loan to the farmers, as provided by law, and the state would not have had to pay this interest and might be able to reduce taxes. But these state authorities didn’t choose to do this, possibly because it would have inter- fered with the bankers’ legitimatetbus- iness of lending money to the farmers at 7 and 8 per cent. G REFERENDUM BILLS ALWAYS DEFEATED In many ways Wisconsin, instead of being one of the most progressive states, a reputation it used to have, is one of the most reactionary. While al- most all of the other states, outside of the extreme East and the extreme