PREFACE.

There are very few persons in the United States, who understand and fully appreciate the fact that the power of local taxation of real estate in our cities, towns and villages is absolutely without limit except the whole value of the land taxed and the whole value of all houses and other improvements thereon.

In its origin on the original theory on which it was founded, the money raised by local taxation was applied to the benefit of the person and property taxed. The benefit to the person and property taxed was equal to or greater than the amount of the tax. This is given as the sole reason for compelling the owner of real estate pay for work and material which he did not want and for whch he made no contract or agreement.

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Before the citizen can be compelled to give up his property in the interest of the public good under any legislative act, the evidence should leave no reasonable doubt as to the fact, the character and amount of benefit. The evidence should be the same as that required to prove a resulting trust. The unlimited power of the English Parliament should not have been given to our city councils. But our city governments in the United States have and exercise greater power. No Parliament in England from Runnymede to the present hour has ever yet undertaken to make an actual damage a real benefit.

Our city councils should not be compelled to serve two masters having opposing interests, one master being the abutting property-owner and the other, the balance of the public. Our common councils are not judicial tribunals to hear and weigh impartially the evidence offered and render a judicial decision on notice and hearing. No man can serve two masters. This principle is deeply imbedded in human nature. It was the divine judgment of Jesus Christ, enunciated more than eighteen centuries ago. It is a source of deepest regret that our American courts should dare to reverse this judgment of Jesus Christ. His decision has been effectually overruled by all our American courts. We no longer make parks, boulevards, pavements; we now make money. The park, the boulevard, the streets, are the mere by-products of our moneymaking.

Grading a street may be a benefit or a damage to abutting property. The tax is levied and the tax-bills issued after the work is done. We do not grade streets under the tax-power. If the grading cause a damage, that damage is done before the levy of the tax or the issue of the tax-bills.

The tax-power can not make that a benefit which was and is a damage. The street is just as good to travel on without the tax-bill as with it. The tax-bill ordinance does not make the street any better to travel

on.

Keating v. Skiles, 72 Mo. 97 (A. D. 1880); Keating v. City of Kansas, 84 Mo. 415 (A. D. 1884); Keith v. Bingham, 100 Mo. 300 (A. D. 1889); Smith v. Kansas City, 128 Mo. 23 (A. D. 1894); and McQuiddy v. Smith, 67 Mo. App. 205 (A. D. 1896), were all grading cases.

Keating graded Bell street to the benefit of adjoining lots and of the City of Kansas and he failed to recover from the lotowners and from the city. While in Keith v. Bingham, 100 Mo. 300, the contractor's assignee recovered on the tax-bills notwithstanding the fact that the grading damaged the lot and just compensation for such damages was not paid. Where the grading was a benefit the contractor could not recover; where it was a damage he could.

In Smith v. Kansas City, 128 Mo. 23, Mrs. Smith recovered $2,750 against Kansas City because the grading damaged her property that much, while in McQuiddy v. Smith, 67 Mo. App. 205, the contractor recovered against Mrs. Smith $300 for the same grading, the grading being a benefit in the tax-bill suit.

The graded street may be better or worse to travel on than the ungraded street, but the tax-bill does not make it any better or any worse to travel on either to the public or the abutting property-owner.

The American constitutions (state and national) have imposed certain restrictions on the powers of the government. These restrictions apply to all branches of the government, executive, legislative and judicial.

Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation, and such compensation shall be ascertained by court and commissioners, or by court and jury, and this just compensation shall be paid in advance.

Of course this is not a restriction on the tax-power eo nomine. Certain things are prohibited from being done. The things are prohibited, not the names. The state legislatures do the things they are prohibited

from doing and then tax the injured persons and property to pay for doing the prohibited things. This is done in the interest of the public and against the person and property designed to be protected. May the state legislatures authorize cities, towns and villages to do the things the state constitutions prohibit them from doing and then tax the injured person and property (the very person and property designed to be protected by the restriction) for doing such injury?

Now, all such constitutional restrictions have ceased practically to be such restrictions or prohibitions, and have become provisions authorizing state legislatures to enact laws enforcing the prohibited things and then authorizing local taxes to pay for doing the prohibited things. Such tax laws are constitutionally valid notwithstanding the acts done are in plain terms prohibited. On the same principle, legislatures may enact laws for doing all other prohibited things and then enact laws for local taxes (or general taxes) to pay for doing such prohibited things; such local taxes are held constitutionally valid notwithstanding the acts done (for which such taxes are levied) are prohibited in plain terms. Here is a distinct prohibition. This is quite different from a mere want of authority. If the Legislature may do one prohibited thing and tax locally the injured person and property designed to be protected, then the Legislature may do all the acts prohibited and tax the injured person and property to pay for them.

In the American states all constitutional barriers have been swept away, as much now as in the days of the French Revolution, when the Dantons, the Robe

spierres and the Marats were in the zenith of their power. Tax-bills are now in the same condition as municipal bonds. Although the bond is a contract, the tax-bill is not; but it is founded on contract—the contract to do public work.

The public work contracted to be done may be ruinous to the property taxed and to the property-owner, yet the tax-bills issued for doing this injury are sacred constitutional obligations and valid to all intents and purposes in the hands of the original wrongdoer. Our state constitutions rival the constitution of Hell and far exceed it in iniquity. I do not believe that the framers of our state constitutions ever intended that the property-owner should be taxed to pay for damaging his own property.

In the establishment of this judicial iniquity, all sorts of thrusts, insinuations and innuendoes are indulged against those who oppose or even question the enforcement of such unrighteous laws and ordinances. The vilest epithets known to the language are applied to them. Those who favor the iniquitous system are enterprising; they are public spirited; they aim to accomplish the public good. They deify the public good. That which they take to be good is really bad. French Revolutionists deified a strumpet for the Goddess of Liberty. We have followed their example. The Devil always makes a good argument (i. e., apparently good). But in the American tax-bill the Devil has fairly outdone himself.

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The courts have authorized and sanctioned combinations of the few, the powerful in finance and intellect against the weak deserving protection against those unsuspecting.