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Show mt w The Democrat Will Save Yon Money on Your Legal Notices. Call Was. 9 5-4- -9 TRUTH ABOUT UTAH She has the Greatest Scenic Wonders in the World. INTERMOUNTAIN WEEKLY $1.50 A YEAR SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, SATURDAY, JANUARY, 24, 1925 VOL 4 No. 4 The Cost of cation in Woodrow What Uncle Many Bills of Irrigation History Wilsons Sams Ledger Passing Before Salt Lake Valley Utah Legislature Biographer Disclosed Edu- RAY STANNARD BAKER CHOSEN FINANCE DEPARTMENT DEFENDED Report of The Superintendent of Pubic Instruction Expenditures Depended Within the realm of state and local taxation, the chief topic of discussion is expense for education. Citizens organizations of various kinds, current periodicals, and individual taxpayers are interesting themselves in the problem of financing our public schools. Teachers and school officers are frequently called upon to furnish information or to defend the emphasis given to education. Discussion growing out of this general interest in the subject is enlightening and valuable, providing all facts bearing upon the subject are given due consideration. The following table shows the total 80, one-thi- elementary and secondary education, Utah is now spending aproximately and $10,000,000 a year. In 1920-2- 1 mil1921-2- 2 exceedede ten the total lions. .In ,1922-2- 3 the, amount. fell to nine and a half millions. The aggrewill probably not gate for 1923-2- 4 show a further decrease. Why Costs Have Increased Since 1916 Agencies working for lower taxes naturally place great emphasis upon the educational expenditures of each of the last four years compared with those before the rapid increase began. The comparisons are published broadcast and are proclaimed in public meetings and elsewhere for the purpose of reducing school tax levies. Unfortunately this publicity leaves out of account some very vital matters. If school costs had been the only costs to show a great increase from 1916 to 1920, there would be much greater cause for investigation. It is well known that costs of all commodities and services rose rapidly during Statistics from the this period. of Labor show Bureau United States 1920 the purchasthat from 1913 to f. ing power of the dollar dropped That is, fifty cents would buy as much in 1913 as one dollar in 1920. Most of the drop was after 1915. In 1921 the dollar recovered sufficiently to give it the purchasing power of sixty cents before the war and remained at practically the same level through 1923 and 1924. Since school costs are mostly fixed by contract a year or more in advance, the marked increase in school expenditures did not show until after .the close of the school year 1916-1Without including buildings and equipment, the cost of running our elementary and high schools in 1916-1- 7 was $3,860326. The highest total reached since then was in 1921-2when the sixm was $7,710,266. The increase in dollars is practically was 100. But if sixtyonecents in 1916 in dollar of 1921, the equivalent the $3360326 paid out in 1916-1- 7 is equal in purchising power to $6343,-71-1 The actual increase, in 1921-2then was $1375355, or slightly unOn the same basis of figurder ing, the increase in expenditures for is 1922-2- 3 over those of 1916-1- 7 17.3. The cost of buildings and equipment for both years is left out in these computations tot the reason that these items fluctuate from year to year; and, in the case of bond redemptions, the change in the purchasing power of money does not apply. If these items are included, the increase is found practically the same for 1922-2- 3 but higher for 1921-2when the amount expended for buildings was unusually large.' Measured in services and commodities, then, our school expenditures during the period in question, instead one-hal- 7. 2, 2. 20. 2, PRESENTED doubling, as is so generally claimed, have actually increased 20 the other being entirely covered by the decline in the buying power of money. In explanation of this 20 increase it is necessary only to mention, in addition to our normal growth in school population, the' general movement for school betterment which took place immediately after the war, when the public press and civic organizations everywhere urged improvement of the public school system. In Utah, this sentiment found expression in new school legislation. The compul-ihav- e sory attendance age was extended to eighteen, and in other ways new re- sponsibilities were placed upon the schools. Because of the increased cost of living and the larger financial remuneration which other vocations offered, many of our best teachers left the profession. In 1919-2- 0 nearof the teachers employed ly in our state were without the legal qualifications for certificates. The citizens of the state expressed their sincere devotion to the cause of education by supporting higher local tax levies in 1920 and 1921, and by ratifying the constitutional amendment for a higher state school tax, which was first levied in 1922. As a result of all this, teachers have received somewhat better compensation, and the school programs have been extended to conform, as far as possible, to the new demands. These developments account for the actual increase in expenditures. In the matter of increase of expenditures for all public services supported by property taxes, Utah holds an average position among the states. A recent bulletin from the United States Census Bureau gives the per capita increase in property taxes in Utah in the 1st ten years as 134, and the increase in the nation as a whole as 132. Within our state the proportion of all taxes going to the schools has not materially changed in recent year.. The latest report of the State Board of Equalization shows that in of all .taxes charged was 1916, 45.8 for elementary and high schools. In 1922 the first year in which the higher state school tax was. levied, the an increase in population was 49.1 percentage of 3.3. From these facts it would seem therefore that the in our school taxes is not seriously out of proportion with increase in other taxes in Utah or in the nation as a whole. These facts are not given for the purpose of relieving school officers of the responsibility of administering Even school affairs economically. in decreased has value, money though and even though other kinds of public service have increased in cost in the same ratio as the schools, these conditions do not justify any unnecessary expenditures. To the extent, however, that higher prices are are the result of depreciation in money value, the increase in money cost in getitious and not attributable to the agency furnishing the services. Moreover, since all public show a similar increase in costs it is evident that forces beyond their control have been operating upon them all alike. In the present instance, these forces are the decrease in money value and the demand for more and better public service. .From figures available it is evident that from many angles of educational expenditures, Utah ranks high among the states. However, in general, the states which head the lists in educational expenditures are in the west. The mountain states are particularly prominent and the report in which the figures are found mentions, as reasons for the larger per capita expenditures in these states, the sparsity of population and the fact that the educational systems are in process of development. A scattered population requires the maintenance of small schools or the transportation of pupils. - The' result' is a higher cost for instruction, main- rd in-cre- se act-itiv-es The country' has awaited with expectancy the selection of the man to write the official story of Woodrow WHO ARE THE Wilson and the great war. Ray Stannard Baker, New Eng- CHILD LABOR AMENDMENT of IS OWED BILLIONS, BUT OWES MORE BILLIONS TAX-DODGER- S? Available Water Supply Utalized Thousands of Acres to Reclaim Americans take considerable pride The waters of City Creek, EmigraThe first irrigation in modern times in the fact that the United States is tion Canyon, Parleys Canyon and the creditor nation of the world. But on this continent occurred in Salt Bills are rapidly accumulating beMill Creek are now either used or when we face the stern reality that Lake Valley, now the present site of fore the present legislature. Many needed by Salt Lake City for Uncle Sam owes three times the the City and County Building, water sorely wide of domestic a measures, covering range puroses. In addition. Salt amount due him it is with effort that was diverted from Creek the on now are and interests Lake City has procured about 90 City by problems we disport ourselves so jauntly about the calendar, and active debate has 1847. of the water of Big Cottonwood Canwaters the of Later pioneers there are debtors at our front door and 20 of the water of Littlo streams from mountain were the begun. yon who owe us some ten billion dollars, bill to the Cottonwood water was Then utilized. diverted Opposition abolishing Canyon. Some of the there are creditors at o ur back door the department of finance developed lands previously irrigated by these with a bill for some thirty-tw- o billion from Jordan River. At present some when it came before the Senate com40,000 acres of land are watered streams are now watered by canals dollars. mittee on state and municipal affairs from Jordan River. The last developWhile it is true that the cost of from this source. ment was the installation of a pump-ig- n About Monday afternoon. Senator John W. twenty years ago pumps government has increased, that the were installed Peters of Boxelder county contended of the mouth the at plant by Salt Lake City which of this debt has been major portion finance 200 feet to supply while of the that department in such worthy causes as edu- Jordan River to lift water from the lifts water about spent and purchase is perhaps not perfect, lake into the river. Finally water farms with irrigation water in order cation, road building, and other was it is a step in the right direction. pumped about 100 feet direct to obtain water from Big Cottonnational improvements, it is still an Several memorials to Congress from Utah Lake and some 15,000 wood Canyon for culinary purposes. open question could this have been acres the in House, of land were irrigated on the There still remains on the east side presented done without placing such a staggerone by William C. Stark of Salt Lake world. Mr. Baker became acquainted with ing mortgage upon the nation's fu- east and west sides of the valley. of Salt Lake valley a large area of the wouid ask Congress to repeal Shortly afterwards a gravity canal land over 20,000 acres that needs President Wilson while he was Gov- ture? water. election law calling for a messenger ernor Provo River crossed the Jordan from The Federal Trades Commissions Since that of New ; This is acres to from each state to deliver the elec- time he was Jersey. water about Narrows 10,000 very choice land, adapted to intimately associated report of its investigation into the of additional land. and is the part of cultivation intense toral votes to Washington. The with the president througgh the try- national debt with special emphasis second by James E. Whittaker of All this development has been the valley favored by home builders. of the war, the European upon bond should lead ing days to Piute would memorialize Congress through the cooperation of land On the west side of the valley above and those:- ardious days of the everyone toi some sober thinking. make an appropriation for the inves- trip, owners. They have borrowed money the old gravity canals a very large struggle to bripg a just and righteof Utahs at deposits, potash tigation high rates of interest and have area of land extends from the Point ous peace to the world. THE UPKEEP OF DEBT and for experimentation on producmade heroic efforts to bring the val- of the Mountain north and west to He, therefore! knows something of A PUBLIC debt is like a tion of potash. ley to its present high state of culti- the Oquirrah range at Magna. This the soul of Wodrow Wilson as well is choice mountain loam and is adaptThe impeachment petition against as the cold facts of that touring car. It must not be vation. period of R. is Burton Thomas ed to dry farming, which is proof final occupyand now We the enter upon Judge his life. only paid for but its upkeep, in the in the attention much legislature, ing A general appeal has been made form of interest and sinking funds, last part of the irrigation develop- that under irrigation, it will be hightho it is not expected to hinder the to all who have received ment of this valley. Private capital ly productive. The third large area personal must be maintained out of current is no reis until it program legislative longer adequate. Remnants of of land in this valley susceptible of letters from the president to forward income. The increasee in taxation House of the out water must me collected, and a com- reclamation is about 40,000 acres of judiciary copies to Mrs. lYilson. It will prob- described above and prosperity of the ported committee. Judge Burton denies the take several years of careful and nation represent only in part the re- - prehensive, unified program worked land west of Salt Lake City and ably charges as a fabric of misrepre- studious work to. assemble the mater- - quirements for the necessary current out, for the easy and cheap methods north of the Lincoln High Way, sentation - that. .can easily be Jorn ial, select "and 'lirganizfr-itTTJ,ooeleA....,,fbis. land needs In almost equal of. reclaimation have, beenexjiajusjed. proper when becomes This feasable asunder. money drainage. Irrigation water is proform to present to the public. The j part they represent the cost of the Recla- curable from the lower Jordan River The proposed Child Labor amendU. S. be obtained from the will await with interest the upkeep of the public debt. Of the total can country both before on the terms which this and Utah Lake. ment has been presented income from taxation in 1923, as the mation fund efforts of Mr. Baker. conreThe sources of water supply and houses, and bids fair to occupy 000,000 was spent for interest and re-- ! act provides; namely, an annual of obtaining the water will to siderable attention. The larger busGovernment the method equivaCommissions report indicates, $1,458, payment in the next article. outlined 5 the. income of of be to the iness interests in general seem to be gross charges on the public debt. lent jtirement W. KIRKIIAM. and FRANCIS educational while opposing it means that nearle 40 per cent land. ;This civic groups favor. The matter will of the total ordinary governmental be gone over in committee, and it is billion debts. For the combined state debts Of the total of thirty-tw- o expenditures in that year were for the expected that lively debate, both pro Among the important proposals upkeep of the debt, as against a little of taxexempt securities issued and of only a little more than a billion and con will be centered around it. which carried over from the last than 3 per cent in 1916. If the on December. 31, 1922, there need be no great criticism. But Other important measures are: A sion, and on which action should national income be roughly estimated outstanding e for the staggering total of some nine billion were wholly twelve nearly bill to give cities and towns authority come before March 4th, is the Norris billion more billions of dollars of county municiwhile than twenty to regulate the height, number of Constitutional Amendment to do were free of the ordinary income tax pal debts what ample justification is stories of buildings and to provide away with lame duck sessions of but subject to the surtax on the larger there? It is prodigality run mad, and for the zoning of districts for resi- Congress. Under this amendment, e incomes. Of the wholly dence, business, trade and industrial each Congress elected in November if,, as is claimed, it comes of the comwas issued $2,294,000,000 Uef for would take office the following Jana bm t0 brins ease with which these minor by the Federal Government and $8, parative WHO IS THE TAX DODGER and uary. ..tilers - t pjute irrigatim projcct divisions may borrow money through The sins of the rich are said to 797,000,000 by state and local governreturn to the state on the principal Now a new Congress cannot begin ments. issue, of their tax exempt securities, $1,000,000, and interest of $200,000, functioning before the succeeding be many. They have been vociferously indeed has been S, powerful argument introduced in the Senate by W. D. March 4th, four months after elec- accused recently of putting all their Candland' of Sanpete. INTERESTS PAID government foun , against such exemption. tion; and does not meet in regular money into course till a year and a month after bonds, thus depriving industry of The interest of secuand investment for governvoted. in- JT have Meantime the capital rities 1922 received people during by as well as tenance, and supervision, the old Congress, a large proportion ment of their just of taxes. The re- dividuals whose taxable incomes other and of for. distribution supplies of whose members may have been port of the Federal Trade Commiss- exceeded $10,000 a year each is estimaterials. In new communities, also, repudiated has control of legisla- ion shows, on the bases of estimates mated at nearly $176,000,000, of which which I consider sound, that of the more than $97,000,000 was only it is inevitable that taxes will be tion for a whole session. e billion dollars of e The Norris Amendment (S. J. Res. thirty-tw- o and more than $78, By C. N. LUND higher for buildings and equipment, 22) passed the Senate on March 18, securities. Federal, state and local, wholly was to 000,000 subject conditionally if these are supplied direct from 1924. It is now pending on the House nearly twelve billion were in the sur-taAll of the intereste received taxes; and for interest and sinking Calendar, being at present the six- hands of business corporations in from securities in 1922 These little ones are calling to 1922 in billion five and and the measure erected from the the of are teenth nearly top fund, if buildings by business., corporations, estimated the country today, and calling loudly. e furnished with means derived from Calendar. This Calendar, however, hands of individuals with taxable at $448,000,000, was wholly does not include the appropriation incomes of more than $10,000 a year. under the existing law. Banks and Their physical, mental and spiritual bond sales. lf the trust companies held nearly $5,600, welfare is being weighed in one side bills and bills indirectly appropriat- This means that nearly In Utah the percentage of school ing money or property, which are securities were in the 000,000 of the securities and received of the scale against material profits population in actual attendance is placed on the Calendar of the Com- possession of individuals with incomes $236,000JH)0 of the interest. Insurance in the other side. Let me here reproatof less than $10,000 a year. mittee of the Whole House. high. Our laws require companies owned more than $2300, duce the words of Colliers Weekly as 000,000 and received but obtained used in a tendance up to eighteen years of age leading editorial some time practically na benefit from the and in this way place upon our since they were by law, ago, which was as follows: schools a responsibility not carried already exempt. WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND in most states. The majority of our One of the arguments least used THESE LITTLE ONES districts account for practically every is the cost in It is said that Boston passed an Dr. Theodore Koppanyi of Buda- against The total maxiOne of the well informed obchild living within their boundaries, ordinance which forbade bathing un- pest, working with Prof. A. J. Carlthe in son laboritories order of income a tax and to the mum Federal addition of less out physiological physician, by and the number reported servers at Washington says cooly, school is remarkably low. This is that this law was actually on the of the University of Chicago, has suc- returned in 1922 that would have "Die child-labamendment will fail cessfully transplanted the eyes of been taxed, would have been about true not only of the ' elementary statute books from 1845 to 1862. child-labWe the amendment say rats. $100,000,000. It is asserted that in schools but also of the high schools, this loss to the Federal Government must not faiL A million American The first postage stamps in the which have a relatively large enrollUnited States were issued in 1849. ment. By all odds the best of the four ic offset, however, by the compara- boys and girls are in slavery. They in But after all the chief reason biographies of Woodrow Wilson ap- tively low rates of interest which it work, not at mere chores or afteris a in possible only highly pearing in America in 1924 is that has to pay by reason of the exemp- school jobs, but at hard, grinding Comedy any state for a liberal support of the tion of these securities from taxation. schools is the attitude of the people. civilized country; for a comparatively written by William Allen White. labor, eight and ten hours a day. one cannot have to stand. barbarous to Current Opinion. In Utah the determination provide ridiculed Shaw. Many of them are less than six years adequate educational facilities has their follies GO PRINCIPLE old. There are at least seven foreign PAY AS YOU been characteristic of the., citizens The efforts of the German nation to been said So American for and countriess that wont tolerate this attribute has much people from the beginning. Our position of The make themselves terrible to all other seento of extraordinary nations ended in a profound cata- against the issue cruel business of robbing little leadership, especially in our common their greatness curities that the public, approaching dirty, schools, has given' us notable distinc- ergy and ability, but in fact this clysm. Dr. Crape. the exhausted stage, propably desires children of their youth, their health, tion for many years, and has been a greatness is built on what is at. best the possession of a rich it to be consigned to limbo. Neverthe- their righ tto learn from books and strong factor in our material and an accidentand vast natural resources. An invention tested by the U. S. less, the data shown by the Federal games. How long will the United social progress. In many lines of virgin soil bureau of standards has been per- Trade Commission in its report is States stay uncivilized? How long George A. Shreiner, Journalist. educational advancement Utah has will so letters so fected vital that it that engrave compels necessarily shall the greed and neglect of grownpioneered the way. The people of one square discussion. Aside from the Federal the state believe thoroughly in educa- , Dr. Adolph Miethe, a German small that in the space of up people bear down upon these little tion. They expect a great deal of physicist of high standing, claims to inch the inventor claims he could debt the greatest significance of the Remember, this is from their schools, and tiiey support them have transmuted vapor of mercury write eighty complete copies of the report lies in the story ofandenormous oijjes? bible. and growing municipal county Colliers Weekly. into gold. accordingly. . lander, graduate of Amherst, long a friend and intimate associate of the war president, has been appointed to the task. Mr. Jtaker is charged only with the duty to write unsympathi-call- y the facts as are revealed by the official papers,' and personal letters of Mr. Wilson, It is doubtful if there is a better equipped man jin America than Mr. Baker to carry out the ardious task to which he has been assigned. Probably the deciding factor in the selection of Mr. Baker was the statement by the President in a letter to Baker, which was never posted, that he knew of no other man he would rather have to assemble his papers, letters, and memoes, and present them to the i . ion tax-exem- pt - seven-passeng- er . run-K-t- 2- .. , . costa-of-giK'ermoe- r' nt. ; I ; ses-jmo- re tax-fre- tax-fre- tax-exem- pt tax-exem- pt THE CALL OF THE TIMES tax-fre- tax-fre- x. tax-exem- pt . tax-fre- one-ha- tax-exem- pt un-usu- all tax-exempti- on lost taxes. m or or -- - tax-exem- pt |