Midland Cooperator

Cooperator Protests

Elsewhere in this issue appears an objective statement with regard to the proposed Amendment No. 2 to the Minnesota Constitution to be submitted to the voters at the November election. We publish below a letter with regard to the amendment from S. A. Stockwell, a veteran progressive member of the Minnesota Legislature and long a champion and supporter of the cooperatives of the state. The editors do not commit the Cooperator to any side in the controversy, but are pleased to present Mr. Stockwell's letter as an excellent statement of the opposition to the amendment.

To the Editor,

One of the most important, if not the most important question before the voters at the coming election, is the rejection of Amendment No. 2. This amendment originated with the most reactionary and subversive organizations in the state. It is impossible to analyze this amendment fully, for want of space. If it should pass, it would prevent the legislature from levying taxes on real estate and tangible personal property after January 1st, 1937, except for the purpose of paying debts already contracted and the interest on those debts. It would mean that, no matter what the emergency, flood, fire, famine, or frost, the Legislature would be estopped from coping with such a condition. It would leave a hole in the State Treasury of from fifteen to sixteen millions of dollars, and deprive the school funds of the state of from seven to eight millions of dollars. There are many other State services that would have to be cut out entirely or very materially reduced. The passage of the amendment would relieve the United States Steel Corporation, and other mining companies of from two and a half to three millions of dollars of taxes. It would relieve the big life insurance companies of upwards of six millions of dollars, and it is intended by the forces behind this amendment to substitute, in lieu of these perfectly legitimate taxes, a sales tax which would fall upon the farmers and wealth producers according to the amount they eat and wear—the most vicious tax ever devised. It is contended by the advocates of this amendment that it will relieve real estate and tangible personal property and is, therefore, wise. They forgot to state that the sales tax which they propose to put over, if the people of the state are foolish enough to adopt the amendment, will amount to at least three times the saving on real estate by the amendment. It should always be borne in mind that more than fifty per cent of taxes levied for the support of the national government are taxes on consumption, and if the reactionaries were able to pass this amendment, and a like amendment throughout the nation, they would saddle upon the wealth producers many billions more. Everyone who wants public education adequately supported, who does not want the legitimate services now rendered to the people of the state curtailed should vote "No" on this amendment, and urge his friends to do likewise.

S. A. Stockwell