The evening world. Newspaper, November 20, 1915, Page 3

FRANCHISE TAX A JOKE TO THE P. 8. CORPORATIONS: CIV LOSES AT EVERY TURN Consolidated Gas Bookkeeping Illus- trates How the “Tax and Inter- est” Charged Is Manipulated Gross Earnings Tax the Remedy. The Evening World experts have Public utility corporations to pay a fncome basis and ha’ demonstrated the futility of forcing Proper proportionate tax on a net insisted that the most effective method was to easess on gross earnings—which limited the opportunity to bookkeeping Jugglery. should be similarly applied—at a rate —and an end would be put to the The State collects on a gross earning basis and the city tax to be determined by the Legislature years of litigation and compromise which have followed a weak enforcement of the franchise tax law. ‘The special Franchise Tax Law has few friends outside the corporations. They fought it from the first, finally tamed it and now it eats out of their hands. If the city could collect to- day the money that public service corporations owe for franchise taxes the tax rato would probably be about the same as last year in spite of the unjust and oppressive direct tax which Gov, Whitman now admits Was unnecessary. The corporations persistently dis- pute the franchise tax assessments. ‘The city authorities have sent about the country for experts to come here and make the assessments, and some- times it has been found that the out- side experts were of a most pessimis- tie turn of mind concerning the value of pudlic service property in the city streets, As the expenses of the city have climbed and climbed the as- sessed valuation of corporations for franchise purposes has slumped and slumped, Between 1910 and 1913 the public utilities companies of the city dis- puted assessments for franchise tax purposes amounting to $2,476,442,196. The corporation defied the city to! collect, and the matter dragged along * until 1910, when settlements began to assessment Was reduced $551,233,728, or 22 per cent. Readers of The Evening World will do well to keep their at- tention on this matter of the special franchise tax, because it is going to make some amazing revelations as this series of taxation articles de- velops. JUST HOW THE CONSOLIDATED JUGGLES IN BOOKKEEPING. ‘The interborough and the B, R. T. are notorious franchise tax dodgers, but it remains for the Consolidated Gas Company to use the plan of re- fusing to pay the special franchise | tax as 4 means of making the books show less protit than is really earned. Here is what the Public Service Com- mission sald about the report of Con solidated Gas for tho fiscal year 1913- 1914—the latest available. “There was charged to income and set aside for unpaid special franchise | taxes and taxes on ‘mains, pipes and connections’ approximately | $1,781,00 together with some $335,000 for inter- est on unpaid taxes. It is the prac- tice of the Consolidated Gas Com- pany, even when they are disputing | these tax levies, to charge against | ineome not only the total amount of | levy but also the maximum interest penalty (7%) per annum. “As a result of this policy expenses | are overstated and profits are under- stated. At the time of tae last scttle- ment of the special franchise which was in 1910, for the three years 1907-09, the Consolidated Gas Com- pany alone obtained a reduction from $1,378,000 to $765,000 (an abatement of $613,000) besides a reduction in the in- terest penalty from $624,000 to $80,100 thus returning to surplus $1,157,000 ‘ yepresenting previous overcharges to ©. inerne ‘ew York Edison Company at the same time obtained abatement aggregating $568,000, and other subsi- diary companies (of the Consolidated Gas Company) obtained similar abate- ments. ‘There are some figures to ponder over, gentle real estate owner, in con- ection with the fact that the tax te for the year Is estimated at $21.40 Per $1,000, and will be higher if the returns on the personal tax assess. ment do not measure up to the expec: tations of the budget makers, It is quite necessary that the humble real estate owner pay his taxes when they are due. AN EASY WAY TO SWELL A SURPLUS. The Consolidated Gas Company has & much more busincsslike system. It refuses to pay taxes for three years, enters into a dicker with the city which wipes away close to.50 per cent, of the accumulated taxes and over 87 per cent, of the accumulated interest and puts over $1,000,000 into surplus. And all the time it has been refusing to pay taxes it has been us- ing these very taxes as a bookkeep. ing expedient to hold down dividends, Of course it is expedient that divi- dends be kept down or the public might think there is too much money in manufacturing and selling 80 cent 8. One corporation objection to the tax on gross income is that it would be oppressive on companies which are not earning profits. In the first place there is no reason why every prop erly managed public utility corpora- tion in this great city should not be It is not the the people that many of ntle corporations have been for stockjobbing purpose: making great profits. of alt And in the second place the special! franchise tax assossed Against di- vidend paying and non-dividend pay- ing companies alike The illustration quoted above from the criticism of the Consolidated Gas Company by the Public Service Com- mission shows the futility of a tax on net incomes of corporations. Judg- ing from past experience it is fair to assume just what the Consolidated Gas Company will do-fight the tax, charge it and 7 per cent. interest up to income, thus padding the expenses and shrinking the very net income upon which the tax would be as- -IN-LAW SUES MOTHER FOR WIFE'S DEAD LOVE Myers Asks $100,000 in Su- preme Court for Alienation of Affection. Dr. ming his mother-in-law, Mrs. Sally Kahn, for the estrangement that has occurred between himself and wife, Dr. Edward E. Myers of No, 823 West End Avenue and a member of the faculty of Columbia University, to-day broughtt sult against Mrs, Kahn for $100,000 dam- ages for alienation of affections. Mrs, Myers is the daughter of Mrs, Kahn. The wedding took place in June of last year. It appears from the papers in the case that Mrs, Myers has left for Dallas, Tex., where her father lives. Until Mrs, Kahn came to New York, the physician alleges, his mar- life was happy. “I was called a pauper and a beg- gar,” Dr. Myers asserts. "My wife was implored to leave me go to Texas and obtain a divorce. Mrs. Kahn told my wife that she wanted her to wed the man she knew before I courted her.” Dr. Myers alleges his mother-in- law hired detectives to keep him under constant surveillance. scl Aaa MANDEL CREDITORS MEET. Resee' Bids for Real Estate of 1 at Side Bank, The creditors of the Adolf Mandel Savings Bank, No. 155 Rivington Street, met this morning before William Allen, funct referee in bankruptey, In the Federal Court Building and rejected all bids for the bankrupt's real estate, The amount of tho bids totalled less than 75 per cent. of the appraised valuation of the defunct bank's property Among the bids turned down as that of Leach Cross, the prize fighter, of 53,000 for two uptown apartment houses The real property of the bank, com- prising some parcels o' nd, e@x- cluding lots in Munroe County, Pa, and at Hicksville, Long Island, will be of- fered at public sale on Jan. 20 or 24. The creditors will next month. a DEATH BY GAS meet again early IN HOTEL. Ernest Seemeyer, fifty years old, & grocer of No, 147 Wyckoff Avenue, Williamsburg, was found dead in Zimmerling's Hotel, No, 1676 Myrtle | Avenue, this morning. A gas burner in the room was turned on full, See- Are most successful because they re- move dandruff, allay itching and irrita- tion, keep the scalp clean, and promote thy, hair growing conditions. Samples Free by Mail uous and Ointment sold everywhere, ‘camaplo of cach mailed free with 52-p 00k. Madre peovaare “cuveura,” Dept. 90, Boston. meyer entered the hotel at 2 A, M, and jleft a call for 6.30 o'clock The body was taken to the Hamb |Avenue Police Station where {tw |Identifted by Mrs, Annie Seemeyer, his |wife, She said she knew of no reason why her husband should have taken his We, Beomeyer leaves three adult daugh- e - THE EVENI PS RECORD FALSE MALTBE SHEARS, IN LEHTING CASE | Former Commissioner Vehe-' menily Denies He Voted for Delay, as Minutes Show. | | | AFFECTS M’CALL STOCK. | | Witness Also Gives Inside | Facts on Brooklyn 95- Cent Gas Rate Fight. By Sophie Irene Loeb. | Considerable light on the past ac- | tivities of the Public Service Com- mission was shown before the Thomp- son Investigating Committee by the! chief witness at yesterday's session, former Commissioner Milo R. Malt- bie, when confronted with the rec- ords of March 2 last, in which Malt- bie was recorded as voting with Chairman McCall in favor of an ex- tension of time in the Brooklyn Edi- son rato case, Mr. Maltbie proclaimed the reo- ord of that vot false. This is significant in view of the recent developments concerning this cor- ation, which is the operating company of the Kings County Electric Light and Power Com- pany, the latter being the con- cern in which McCal wife held stock. It develops that if Maltb had been recorded properly, as voting in the negative, it could not have passed without McCall vote. There were four Comm sioners present, and a majority vote of the commission was nec- ary. The testimony clearly disclosed that Maltbie vigorously opposed favoring the company in an exten- sion of time, and it has since devel- oped this case is still pending, Malt- bie having gone out of office during the time for which this extension was allowed. ALSO GIVES NEW LIGHT ON GAS RATE CASE. Mr. Maltble further made some im- portant statements concerning the Kings County gas case now pending before the commission, and in which Commissioner Williams now recom- mends a nincty-five-cent rate, deemed to be exorbitant by the people of the Thirtieth Ward who have been fight- ing for an eighty-cent rate for five years, Maltbie showed how the figures found by the former Public Ser- vice Commission differed in but $2,000 from the company's own figures. As has been exposed by The Evening World, and by the evidence before the investigating committee, the company volunta- rily offered to reduce the price of gas on a sliding scale in 1911 from ninety cents so that there would now have prevailed an eighty-cent gas rate. The commission did not accept these rates from the company, but after in- vestigation provided @ similar rate so that there would now be in opera- tion on cighty-cent rate. According to Mr. Maltbie the figures on which these similar rates were based were so close that ho attempted to effect an agreement with the compay in order to avoid litigation; but evidently, ac- cording to ex-Judge Morgan J. O'Brien, attorney for the company, the latter preferred to litigate, which has proved profitable to the company, especially since the company is al- lowed to still charge ninety-five cents in this locality, and If Commissioner Williams's opinion is adopted will continue, WILLIAMS ACCEPTED FIGURES OF THE GAS COMPANY. However, the Thompson committee yesterday asked tho commission to suspend action on this case until they had examined it, Mr. Maltbie's testi- money as to the small difference in figures is ax follows: Judge O'Brien came to the office —I think we had two or three conferences regarding the matter —and 1 suggested to him, asked him, what the attitude of the | company would be upon a rate | such as outlined in my. opinion, which called for a rate of 85 cents | for the remainder of 1912, and at | 80 cents to Jan 1, 1918, The Judge said that the matter would he | taken up with the company, and | they would consider it and let us know what their attitude on it would be later, We were later in- formed that the rates which we had suggested would not allow them an amount of money which they considered sufficient. Q. Informed by whom? A, We were informed by Judge O'Brien Well, | asked him then what the difference was—how much differ- ence there was between their fig- ures and our own figures, the idea being to see whether wi could get a settlement of the o or whether we were so far apurt that a settlement out of the question, Judge O'Brien informed us | either at that time or at a later date, but in the fall of 1911, after the figures had been made, that there was a difference of about $2,000 in the income that our rates would provide, according to the estimates of the company, and the estimates prepared by the company themselves as to the net income that they thought they ought to have, It might not have been exactly $2,000, but it was around that figure. Well, | expressed myself at if the difference b | unjustified \tober or first of No: 9900900000: 2000000 THE AMERICAN MOTHER OF TO-DAY NOt WER VITALITY 1S SAPPED By STUFFY OFFICE ane Factory She’s a Success, but There Seems to Be a Grow-{ A MENT RESTRICTIONS ing Belief That She Isn’t Getting a Fair Show From the State, Which Makes Mother- hood, Under Modern Economic Con- ditions, More and More Difficult. By Marguerite Mooers Marshall. Not the American mother of to-day, but a conspiracy of civilization {s responsible for the dwindling of the American family, according to two let ters which I have received respectively from a man and a woman. sven before she is a wife and mother, argues “Mrs. ." the stuffy office or the machine-choked factory When she L.G drains the vitality of the American girl. marries and has a number of children she ts thereby automatically bar she ultimately settles in a place where the practice of} ra © suicide is not her children canno plaints from all h eC «manifold modern di MAR HALL the children reach adolescence, Judge them the sentence, “Working Papers. go into the streets red from many apartments, When a condition of tenancy, she finds that ot play indoors without evoking com- er neighbors. Yet if the youngsters they risk death hourly from ‘the escendants of the car of Juggernaut, “Bachelor” takes up the strain to point out that as Poverty is ever ready to pass upon and that the average mother and father who would ignore this mandate in the Interests of education must make exceptional sacrifices, particular! each writer, the woman positively, the man interrogatively, deals with the |foreign-born mother gives her children question of just how far a woman's “duty to the State” should carry her| when the State places such obstacles in her path—or at least does nothing | to remove them. WHAT DOES THE STATE DO FOR THE MOTHER? intelligent mother of escape from The self-appointed spokesmen of “the State” say to her in effect: “It is your fob to produce citizens, and in The cannot to-day this question the doing of this Job you must endure days of pain and months of weariness: you must risk an agonizing death | over and over agains you must use| up the best, most vigorous, most pro- ductive years of your life. Your chil- dren shall be provided with free schooling, but not with free milk, al-* though they must drink milk if they are to live to school age; there shall | be parks for them, although perhaps located miles from where they live; in the libraries they may obtain free books, but I expect you to keep them supplied with shoes. What shall you receive for your services? Why, what do you need beyond the con- | sciousness that you are doing your | full duty to the society in which you live! Just think about that and smile happily when you're so tired that you wish you were dead.” Children are their own reward, of course, for the many women who instinctively love them and on whom the burden of supplying their material needs does not fall too heavily. But does the modern State provide such beautiful and harmonious conditions for moth- ers and children that it has the right to demand of the former a multiplicity of the latter? And | in most communities womeb are not even given a chance to work, with their votes, for a betterment tween us was only $2,000, we would dispose of that at once and rant them the $2,000, That i ix the rate so they would $2,000 more income. | con in such a minor mi would bo exceedingly wi agree with my ad stated so far a cerned | recommend a | modification of tho rates which would give them that $2,000 which they thought they ought to have. . And T was more h facts Justified, breaus ful tt wher with th an prop opinion then. at essed, was wholly re must be some | n than | 1 $2,000. | fix the tate was wipnd out tead of having ar Ne firat of Oe | ner, It would | thing mor apply apply on the first of the year, at two months is such a minor matter it would not have beon of great Im portance, Q. But they would not consent to! that? A. They would not consent, | and I told him It guessed th they could make more mone ating t nd fT ha in n they could In settling it | not since changed my | opinion Q. It evidently pretty nearly pald them, according to the records up to date. A. I think the figures would! show that even after paying counsel very generously they had money to | ly if the family is a large one. And Qe of the conditions under which the younger generation must grow up. lan't it rather superficial to attribute our mall families solely to the selfishness and frivolity of the American mother of to-day? Do Evening World readers be- lieve that she Ifish and frivolous as many critics assert? The man nowadays who feels a John-the-Baptist mood com- ing on doesn't go into the desert and eat locusts and wild honey; he sits down at his desk and writes a novel about the heartles: American woman. But is she ally a failure as a mother? Tell me what you think about it. | MOTHERHOOD DISCOURAGED BY | “NO CHILDREN ALLOWED. “Dear Madam: but American-bred, food, clothes and room compels me to belleve that the small family ts ad- visable, When the American girl reaches her aixteenth year she en- jova, stufty lunch she if she has been educated, a little office and a ten-cent If she he» not been educated goes from the little flat she has been brought up to an elec- trical machine In a factory on the tenth or eleventh floor, where all the youth and vitality ts drawn from her, agree with you that the Americans of a hundred y ago had big families and that Lincoln and Garfield were poor boys, but tell dear madam, did their turned awa they were told, ' or perhaps no children are allowed? No, the days aro gone when people lived in little cottages, where the children wore allowed to romp and play in tho gardens and woods. They were little expense and no trouble. There were no cars or autos to run them down to death, as hap- pens with the poor little tots of to-day. In the flats they must stand or tho neighbor I com plain, Th not stand on only play where ath: Make It a Daily Habit SHULTS Tam foreign-born Lack of health, where NG WORLD, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1915. NO PLACE Fou chitpren TO Play excerT Te Smeers THE NECESSCTY OF WORKING we toll sinoking # d pay for it. As for the I think the for- eign boys are mokers. Painted schoolgiris are That educa- tion is cheap is a fact, but can we feed our children on it? Oh, no, Visit the poor quarters where they have big families and see how the children die for lack of proper food, “MRS. L, G." THIS BACHELOR THINKS AMERI- CAN MOTHERS ©, K. “Dear Madam: Are foreign-born mothers better than American moth- ers? I say, decidedly, True, the more individual care in nursing than the American mother, but the foreign- born mother with her large family is likely to look on her children as so much property and to consider how) soon will they be able to add to the! family purse. Because they survive infancy. better than children of the they born, American mother does not prove that maturity good friend, Dr. Guilfoy percentage Against the children of the American Will he also tell us what chil dren of tender ago are found in the sweatshop factory or the mines? will reach of the claims the American woman, because of her duty to the State, should have Ia jarge family “Tam a great defender of American Why? give us that number children can get their papers, while the mother will be making Let our a that do education. only one living. they come from the small family of|years, one in the fifteenth year, an- the American woman or the large|other in the seventeenth year, Lal family of the foreign woman? Helin the twenty-first year. I bel in quality, not quantity. women. There are a few of the class AND SEE FINE “KIDDIES.” he — *, 80 few as to be almost Dear Madam: The answer to your neste que 1s in last night's Evening “The on te fault of the | World Is American mother is that she may “All those who are In dowht that the be too indulgent with her small |‘Made in America’ mother is not the family. The foreign-born mother | best in the world, take a walk any day | rules her family with fear, Inthe | (morning or afternoon) on Washing- same economic circumstances you | ton Heights and see the ‘kiddies — will find the foreian-born mother | healthy, beautiful, happy and strong, looking toward her ‘Hygiene is t 8. To the Public Announcement has been made in the columns of a theatrical magazine to the effect that PATHE has formed a combination with other moving picture interests, these latter having stock for sale. The foundation. report has absolutely no Pathe Has No Stock For Sale Pathe has not combined, nor will Pathecombine with any moving picture interests selling stocks to the public. LOUIS J. GASNIER, General Manager, Pathe Exchange, Inc., 25 W. 45th Street. ne real nitation asa Tealth | Something is wrong. pation, for children, except on er ation and are da ly Bayonne That something is usually consti- Constipation is one of the greatest dangers of childhood—not only in childhood but because it is an in- sidious habit that grows and_ be- comes chronic as the years go on, Do not use cathartics and strong purges doctor's They weaken the natural process of evacu- habit-forming. Nujol Orr, THE MINERAI Directer No Child Is ‘Naturally Lazy’”” OUR little boy or girl isn’t listless, apathetic, sleepy at the wrong time—naturally. Nujol, a pure white mineral oil, is the medically endorsed remedy for constipa» tion, olling the intestinal tract, softening the Nujol acts solely as lubricant contents, and thus promoting easy normal orders, ACO.U.9, Par. PURE WHITE evacuations. system, and may be taken in any quantity without commended for children, It is not absorbed by the harm. Hence it is especially re- Nujol is colorless, odorless and tasteless, Over 42,000 doctors already to send them samples of Nujol, Write for booklet, ‘The Rational Treat- ment of Constipation,’” hasn't it, we will send a pint bottle of Nujol prepaid to any point in the United States on receipt of stamps, have asked us If your druggist T5e--money order or OLL STANDARD OIL COMPANY (New Jersey) New Jersey so that her children can get am “I was born in Engiand, was the youngest of five children and am the One died under two “BACHELOR.” GO TO WASHINGTON HEIGHTS