Fkkil3 DOM-a andugtrial Mark-ers
Published Uaily except ounaay
«r Nome Mine Workers’ Union, No. *40. Western Federation of Miners.
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Entered as second class matter March 1, 1811, a$ the post office at
some, ■ Alaesa, under the Act of March 8, 187$.
All changes In standing advertisements must rea/h this office at six
o clock each evening to Insure insertion In the following issue.
Advertising rates made known on application.
"To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as
ar-arly as possible, Is a worthy object of any good government.”—
abranam Lincoln
Address all Communications to Dally Nome Industrial Worker,
Box 210 Nome, Alaska. Phone, Black 184.
Nome, Alaska, December 1:5, 11*10.
TAXATION.
I
The City Attorney's communii a- j
lion to tlie City council on Monday j
night "ill doubtless give the city ;
fathers food for thought. It ought ;
to give those who pay taxes also
some important matter for reflec
tion.
It is intimated in rather plain
language that the merchants of
Nome, with the best intention in the
world, have been in the habit of re
turning their property of a personal
nature under, rather than over, the
proper values, and that some have
not hesitated to turu in sworn state
ments which art wrong in fact.
There is no other sphere outside
taxation where we view in all its
beauty the realization of that moral
ity which business of profit making
begets. No one feels the slightest
qualm of conscience in beating the
city or the government out of the
taxes which are supposedly due in a
legal way. Although the govern
ment or the city is entitled to an
nex that portion of a person's pri
vate property to a definite per cent
age per annum, the business inter
ests and property owners have no
hesitation in stealing that amount
by keeping it for themselves and
witholding it from the government
or the city. That such a condition
is well nigh universal no one will
deny. And in fact public opinion at
the present time fails completely to
see the immorality of tax evasion as
identical in nature with any other
form of theft.
As the city attorney so ably point
ed out, the failure of the business
interests in this community to re
turn proper appraisements of their
taxable property has resulted in the
real property, especially the cabin
dweller and owner, being taxed
wholly out of proportion to the true
value of his property.
Not only that, but on account of
ibis excessive value placed upon real
estate numberless cabin owners who
were unable to pay this wholly ex
cessive tax. and who were in no po
sition to litigate themselves free of
this injustice, have had to let their
property go in a city sale and all
because of the fact that the rest
evaded their payment of taxes and
kept for their own use moneys due
the city and which were really the
property of the city.
The City Attorney has fairly well
analyzed the situation when he says
that this custom of merchants being
under assessed is due to the fact
that some merchants have made a
practice of doing this to a wholesale
extent, and the others who would
make legitimate and reasonable re
turns of their personal property do
not do so, lest they enable the rogu
ish man getting the best of them
. lirougit his dishonesty. They prac
tice it themselves. Because every
body’s doing it, the other fellow has
got to do it also.
Obviously also, the city attorney
is correct in saying that if every
merchant or business concern re
turned true values as to personal
property which were assessable, the
moneys collected would be the same
because the per centage would be re
duced as far as the taxation is con
cerned.
That is true and that is what is
so difficult for the merchants and
others to realize. In point of fact
what those who have been willing to
return reasonable figures as to their
assessable property have been doing
is to protect the tax evaders by plac
ing themselves in the same boat so
that to punish the guilty one they
would all be punished. In tax eva
sion there has resulted a general
commercial solidarity which even
Chamber of Commerce would have
•difficulty In realizing and repeating.
The main trouble Is, without any
question, that this matter has been
ignored by the council too long. Pro
per notice should have been given
of the law and proper notice also of
heir determination to enforce the
aw.
But Assessor Grimm admits that
ailing any instruction to the con
rary lie has appraised personal
,-alues as in preceding years: that is
o say along the same unit standard
3f value as has been acted upon by
preceding assessors.
It is hard to see how he could
have done otherwise. His position
that the wholesale values are to be
the taxable values is one that has
been generally accepted by the
towns in Alaska, although an obvi
ous fact in this connection is that it
is one that wholly favors those who
monopolize any particular commo
dity such as coal, oil, lumber etc. in
the communities.
And that really is all the criticism
that has to be made concerning the
luminous, instructive and valuable
report of Citv Attorney O’Neill. He
has unquestionably performed a
service for the councilmen and
especially for the Board of Equaliza
tion. It meets practically every
point that can be raised and it be
hoves them to then to be guided by
it. But it would have been well had
this report been handed in to the
city and a copy furnished the city
assessor before he began the assess
ment of the taxable properties in
this town. It could then have been
appraised on the proper basis ot
value and the city got down to a
bed rock of business and law which
they surely never reached before.
This time the city will probably
have to hobble through the mystic
mazes of uneven appraisements and
inequitable assessments. But it
ought to be for the last time. They
now know where they stand, and
they ought as responsible men to be
guided by their knowledge. These
annual taxation squabbles are ridi
culous. The mere fact that Nome is
able to support so extensively com
mercialized a society, so many extra
vagancies public and private, is wit
ness enough of the fact that there
ought not to be these sordid strug
gles to evade paying for what in
turn the citizens are none of them
any way slow to demand.
Businessmen, or some of them
appear to forget that the town and
its costs of up-keep are maintained
almost exclusively for their benefit.
The costs of the street department,
enabling rapid delivering and conve
nient freighting, the expenses of the
fire department affording the stores
ample fire protection for their in
sured or uninsured wares, the costs
of the police department—all those
things are most directly for the nen
efit of the businessmen in Nome.
There remains for consideration the
School expenses. These are shared
by all, and the business men and
the busness interests surely benefit
by the higher standards of mainte
nance for the public schools not any
less than do the general residents.
Moreover, it has to be pointed out
one of the surest ways of maintain
ing a winter population here and
upon which the business element
must finally depend for a living, U
to have an efficient school. The fact
that some of the people who have
families of school age became con
vinced that the schools had deterior
ated for the past preceding two
years has caused some to leave the
town who otherwise would have
stayed here. The school is a nation
al, a territorial and a municipal as
set,and it is one whose benefits can
not be properly appraised in dollars
and cents, or in the cost of its
maintenance. A good school is one
that returns its expenses a thousand
fold and a bad school, an inefficient
school and an Indifferent school is
dear at any price.
Despite all of this and despite the
fact that indirectly practically all
of the money taxed in Nome is re
turned to the business men who are
taxed, we have the annual evasions
always before us when the Board ol
Equalization meets.
The Board of Equalization and i
the Council later on has been res
ponsible for much of the confusion
that has arisen. They have been in
clined to allow every person who
bellyached a bit a rebate upon their
taxes, and in consequence they pla
ced a premium upon kicking and let
the man who accepted things as they
were for the good of the city be the
sucker and the fall guy.
If the Board of Equalization is to
do things right, it will do them
finally. And when the council gets
complaints after the session of the
Board, it will pass them up as con
cerning a matter which has as far
as the council is concerned been al
ready finally adjudicated upon.
It is up to those who have wrongs
to redress to attend the meetings ot
the Board. If they fail to do so
that should be theirs and not the
city’s loss.
But it has been just the reverse in
the past. The man who wanted re
dress attended the Board meetings
and was refused, the delinquent tax
payer complained to the council and
eot his rebate. That state of things
simply encouraged the tax evader
ami nit" ucnn^ucm..
NOW CONSERVATISM.
At the American Mining Congress,
one of the delegates characterized'
the development of the mineral re
sources of the country as an orgy of
hasty exploitation.
That is unjust. It has not been
hasty anywhere. It has been slow,
deliberate and often unduly conserv
ative. Capital took no desperate
chances because capital does not
take desperate chances anywhere. It
walks with, circumspection and ex
ceeding slowness. Many think other
wise and for that reason they waste
many weary days expecting capital
to embark upon the hides of wild
cats as they were magic carpets
would take their owners anywhere.
But there has been an orgy. That
orgy is not in the exploitation hut
in the ownership of these resources.
There has been an orgy of annexa
tion in connection with all the na
tural resources of the country: the
land, the timber, the coal, the mine
rals all over the United States.
There has not been any decent ef
fort made to exploit them. There
has been a most indecent effort
made to seize, to speculate in, to con
trol for future monopoly. That cer
tainly is the way in every outside
state and it is the way that a good
many would have it and have had
it in Alaska. The instinct to
for speculative purposes or for the
purpose of monopoly has suffered
very little let or hindrance. The en
tire country has been staked. Every
effort has been made to grab whole
creeks and most of these efforts
have succeeded. They have even re
ceived patents for ground whereon
work has not been done and where
there never was any intention ol
mining or of doing anything else but
holding for speculative purposes.
Some attempt was made to reme
dy this condition In Alaska hut it
was short lived and did not succeed
Moreover, this is the orgy that It
never mentioned at Mining Con
gresses. They want all of that the
government will allow them. They
denounce any effort to prevent this
insane policy of unrestricted seizure
of the public domain. They attack
Pinchotism and they denounce con
servation. They believe that every
person should be entitled to grab
everything in sight and when there
is nothing more in sight that the
monopolists could be aided by the
government in development.
This orgy is one too that has very
nearly reached the limits of its ope
ration. The country, backward and
retarded by reason of this whole
sale seizure of exploitable resources,
is held for speculation and then the
people who have aided and abetted
this sort of thing wonder why they
cannot galvanize the industrial and
commercial conditions Into some
sort of its pristine health and vigor.
thk diamond from the sky
AT DREAM TONIGHT
Chapter 8.—“A Mind In The
Past.” Hagar is discovered but her
mind has fled. Blair has fled to
Richmond where he meets Vivian, j
“PaI r\tr\ flin rl!or»tnml from t Vi r> clrv I
she tells Blair, ‘‘and I am yours.”
Strap McGee, a tramp, takes the
jewel from the colored boy who
found it. He shows it to Hung Li,
the keeper of a ‘‘hop joint” and is
promptly murdered. The jewel is
draped about the neck of the figure
Lung, the god of the sky. Then come
Vivian and Blair in a slumming
party. They see the “Diamond From
The Sky”. Later a stealthy hand
reaches through a window and sei
zes jewel. A vicious sword swipe by
j the Chinese misses. The hand is un
touched. The jewel is stolen again.
I An altar light is overturned by the
' sword. The silk draped den of the
1 opium king bursts into a mass ot
i flame. In connection with this epi
sodes an outdoor Western, and a
sure Are Ham Comedy will also be
seen. Friday night an Investigation
by Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle
series. A feature. Adm. 25c.
PROFESSIONAL CARD.
Dr. A. F. Heimlich
PHYSICIAN & SURGEON.
Office & Residence:
OVER HILL’S PHARMACY.
Office Hours: 2—6 and 7—8 p. m.
Phone Main 7.
John Hancock
NIGHT SCHOOL. 212 FRONT ST.
From 6:30 to 8:30 p. in.
Rending, Writing and Arithmetic,
also Art of Bookkeeping.
Terms reasonable.
| The Arctic Bakery
iCICICICUNflCU
JUIJU (Jf IJIJI3
PRICES AGAIN REDUCED ON!
FORD AUTOMOBILES
Chassis price is now $ 325.00
Runabout $ 345.00
Touring $ 360.00
F. 0. B. DETROIT
PUCE YOUR ORDER ROW
ALASKA LIGHTERAGE 5 COM! CO.
'WIBBBIgBIBIgiiJRMaEBBfilBKBIBfBBBBMWaKBBIHBfiiRKIilftBffilBBIBIZiaBBWBIBWi
MT. VERNON RANCH EGGS
50C PER DOZER
Have you tried our Mt. Vernon Ranch Eggs which we are sell
ing at 50c. per dozen? If not you have overlooked something.
These eggs will compare very favorably with eggs for which you
pay 75c. per dozen. Try them and save 25c per dozen. This is quite
an item. You know our reputation for having the best eggs.
And we are sincere in saying that this is the best value for the
money we have ever been able to offer.
~oejcroWley~
Kent Transfer Oo.
General Transfer & Freighting
Qoal & QW
Phone Main 139.
TRY
PHIL MURPHY
FOR LEATHER VESTS & COATS, THE LONG KIND OREGON
CITY MACKINAWS. HATS SHIRTS, PANTS, SHOES, UNDER
WEAR, SWEATERS, FUR CAPS, mTTS, WOOL GLOVES,
PARKAS AND ROBES.
MURPHY HAS THE GOODS
Men’s Women’s Children’s
Since the opening of Navigation we have received 3270 pairs
of SHOES and RUBBER FOOTWEAR. Every boat brings more.
“There is a reason". Our prices are right and our business has
been built by satisfactory service to our patrons. *
P. A. PETERSON SHOE CO.
lOOOhMCVMOGKfOOIdMOQKRXiBEIBDMOBI 3l!VOI3UI9)!TUfUlul3uMl!Fu,3l7i9KII3ul.VI3l!n3iX
NOTICE TO TAXPAYERS.
All taxpayers will please take no
tice that the Assessment Roll of the
City of Nome for the year 1916 is
completed and in the hands of the
City Clerk of said City and open foi
the inspection of the public.
You are further notified that pur
suant to resolution duly passed by
the Common Council of said City,
the said Common Council will sit as
a Board of Equalization on Thurs
day, December 14, 1916, at 8 o’clock
P. M. of said day, and at such times
thereafter as said Council may by
resolution determine, to examine the
said assessment Roll and to correct
all errors in valuation, description
or quantity of lands, lots, and other
property, and to transact such other
and further business as may proper
ly come before said board.
E. ORIMM.
City Clerk.
Safety first. You miners coming
in from the creeks look up the ad
vertisers in your paper before dis
posing of your patronage.
Vow to the time to Subscribe.
1 Try our Mild Cured
|
a Hams and Bacon
I Also our WILD ROSE LARD, made
I from the pure leaf fat, In 3, 5, 10 and
20 lbs. cans.
• Independent Meat Market
I W. H. Webb
I TEL. MAIN 15