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Show MAKE THE BUS LINES PAY This year taxes for road work and gasoline, will be considerably consider-ably increased as the fleets of buses and trucks are gaining daily in number. Every addition to the number means more roads to Le repaired. This makes higher property and gasoline taxes. In .some cases, the state tax, together with the federal tax is now up to six cents a gallon. It seems that the tax per gallon will soon equal the cost of the product. One way out of the dilemma is for the state to regulate trucks and buses. The legislatures of 40 staLes will soon be in session, 't he citizens of the states must demand of their legislatures relief from ths gigantic tax burden. Highway taxes now amount to more than 50 per cent of all the takxes raised in the state. If the legislatures fail to act, then groups of citizens will have to appeal to the courts for relief, because the use of the highways at the expense of tax-payers is illegal. There is no case parallel to this on record. Never before have private corporations been permitted to seize the property of the public and hold it for their ow,n private gain. The farmer, the merchant, and the motorst who underwrote the bond issues to build our highways and who are now being taxed to maintain them have no more use of them than the Hottentots. It is well-nigh well-nigh impossible for a motorist to chance to drive on them. The buses and trucks thunder by sweeping everything off the road and crowding the daring automobilists into the ditch. This is not an exaggeration but a fact than can be attested by any of those who have had the courage to attempt to drive on our main highways. West Virginia has made a ruling prohibiting the use of the state highways by commercial truck companies and as a result taxes in that state will soon be lowered. The United States su-peme su-peme court has granted states the authority to regulate buses and trucks on their highways. This gives the overburdened taxpayer hope. It also leads the motorist to belief that eventually the highways high-ways he constructed will be turned back to him for his use. Per-, haps they will be destroyed by the time the bond issues for their construction have been paid off, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that if he is compelled to rebuild them, they will not be destroyed a second time by these healvy vehicles. It may be a costly lesson to the taxpayer, but it is also going to be a costly lesson les-son to the congressmen and senators who have blocked the proper regulations of the national highways. o |