ble and after levying the highest rate possible, has nothing left to improve streets.

Kansas City has 177 miles of streets, including 48 miles yet to be condemned or dedicated. This estimate takes no account of alleys. The city can improve these streets and pay for such improvement in two ways: first, out of the general revenue; second, by tax-bill on abutting property. Except in front of public squares and in front of parks, the city has not paid for one hundred yards of street improvement in thirty years, out of the general revenue.

It was the boast of the people of Missouri, and of the framers of the Constitution of 1875 that here the private property of the citizen was placed under judicial protection against all efforts on the part of the government to wrest it from him, except for public use upon just compensation made, and that private property here had a protection wholly unknown to the legal systems of Europe. "Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use." They supposed, really, that they were in 1875 giving greater security to private property as against the public than had been known before. The power of the Legislature over bonds and other debts for railroads and other public improvements (including taxation resulting therefrom); the power of the county court, the city council, the town council over railroad aid bonds and taxation from that source, had been curtailed and finally taken away in 1875. By their conduct thus evinced, the framers of the Constitution of 1875, when they proposed this Constitution, and the people of the State of Missouri when they adopted it, did not evince a very strong, abiding faith or confidence in the morals of the Legislature, or of the county court, or the city or town councils, in the matter of railway aid bonds and taxation for public improvements.

"Local assessments are constitutional only when imposed to pay for local improvements conferring special benefits." The state Legislature, the city, town and village council, could not then determine these special benefits. That was a rule of constitutional law then. It was not intended by the framers of the Constitution of 1875 when they proposed this Constitution; it was not intended by the people of the State when they adopted it, to convert the boasted American constitutional rule into the merely moral rule of the constitutions of Europe. "Thou shalt not steal,” was intended to apply to the public as well as to individuals. It was not intended to convert that command into a mere moral rule. That boasted provision of the Constitution has now become a mere moral rule for the guidance of the thief, the public, the city, town or village council.

The people of the State, by the Constitution of 1875, decided that our state Legislatures, our county courts, our city, town and village councils, were unfit and unsafe depositaries of this power-this unlimited, limitless power-to contract debts and levy taxes to build roads and railroads.

The depositaries of this power, the legislatures, the county courts, the city, town and village councils, were largely made up (as would seem to be the general concensus of opinion) of knaves, and those not knaves were mostly fools, and both classes were unsafe depositaries of this power, and hence it was taken away. And it was never intended to allow a power worse in its consequences to remain with the same distrusted depositaries to be exercised against abutting lots on a street for building the road or street. Some comparisons follow.

CHAPTER 10.

SOME COMPARISONS.

I presume every one is acquainted with the history of Missouri under the Constitution of 1820, and subsequent constitutions of this and other states on the question of aiding public improvements. In 1865 Missouri ceased to issue state bonds for public improvements. This State then ceased to loan the state credit in aid of public improvements. The people of the State in 1865 by her Constitution put a limit on the power of the Legislature to authorize cities, towns, villages and counties to aid railroads and roads. The power to aid railroads and roads, and take stock in railroads and roads, was taken away entirely from the state Legislature. The county court for the county and the unorganized strip of land, the city, town and village council could no longer be authorized to make bonds or incur debts for public improvements or in aid of public improvements unless there was the two-thirds vote.

In ten years that became very unsatisfactory. Municipalities became largely in debt for public improvements, perhaps never made, and in 1875 Missouri by her Constitution of that year took away that power entirely, so that after that year, no difference what might be the value of a railroad to a county, city, town or village, bonds could not be issued for stock in railroads or to lend credit to railroads. The municipal bond was valid in the hands of a purchaser for value without notice, but the tax-bill is valid in the hands of the original wrongdoer who takes a contract to violate the Constitution-to do that which the Constitution says shall not

be done (Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation), and then this statute law authorizes a sale of the damaged property to pay the contract price to do the damage, or the contract is good if there is no benefit or even if there be a damage. No court has ever yet held valid a municipal bond given for performance of an act prohibited by the Constitution. The doctrine is monstrous. The Czar of Hell, all the arch-fiends and devils of Hell combined could not do worse!

In Zoeller v. Kellogg, 4 Mo. App. 163, we do not know what the value of the land was before the work was done for which the tax-bills were issued, but after the improvement it was worth $1,025, while the tax-bill was $1,688. Here is the actual value found by the court, $1,025. This tax-bill is one hundred and sixtythree per cent of the value of the land and of all value added by the improvement. The reader has never known or heard of any county, city, town or village issuing railroad bonds to the extent of one hundred and sixty-three per cent of the actual value of all the real, personal and mixed property of all the inhabitants of the entire county, city, town or village. If we suppose the land was benefited one hundred per cent, then the lot was worth $512.50, and benefit $512.50, making the $1,025 value. After the contractor received one hundred per cent of the value of the land and one hundred per cent of the value of the benefit, he ought to have been satisfied, but he was not. He got judgment for sixty-three per cent more on land and benefit. This rate never was exceeded or equaled by any city, town or village in Missouri or in Kansas or Colorado (not even by any county, city, town or village laid off anywhere in the prairie grass, or in the buffalo grass, or in the sage brush coun try, or in the alkali districts). I do not believe that the

framers of the Constitution of 1875 ever intended that this "tax on benefits" should ever equal or exceed one hundred per cent of the value of the land and one hundred per cent of the value of the benefit added. We have seen that the same rate of taxation extended to the entire State would absorb all the real, personal and mixed property of the State (not a man in the State would have a shirt on his back) and then the contractor, after he had gotten all the real, personal and mixed property in the State, would be short (poor fellow!) 567 millions of dollars. The state Legislature never issued bonds to this extent, nor did any county, city or town, nor was credit ever loaned to that extent. One instance occurred in Kansas City where the tax bill was $700 and the lot was worth, after all improvements were made, $400. This case was instanced in 1905, before the thirteen free-holders framing a new charter for Kansas City. Here was a tax of one hundred and seventy-five per cent on the original value of the lot, with one hundred and seventy-five per cent of the benefit added. It was not stated what the lot was worth before the work was done which occasioned this presumptive benefit of one hundred and seventy-five per cent of original value with one hundred and seventy-five per cent of the benefit added. The State of Missouri never made such a fatal mistake in issuing railroad aid bonds or lending its credit for public improvements. No county, city, town or village in this or any other state or territory ever loaned credit or issued public improvement bonds to that damaging extent.

Besides, any one at all coversant with public improvements in any city will recognize the estimate of $700 as too low. If we estimate the corner lot as 25 by 150 feet, then we have 175 feet front to pave at five dollars per front foot, 185 feet curbing at 50 cents, 185 feet sidewalk at $1, sewer $40, trees $12.50, total $1,200, in