10.151 per cent of assessment on all Banks.

The tax was 8.922 per cent on the assessment after the state board of equalization had added 24 per cent to personal property, 21 per cent to lots, and 29 per cent to lands. Six of the national banks that were over-assessed retained the Taxpayers' Defense League to resist the tax on such a basis. The League secured indictments of the assessor for soliciting bribes, for conspiracy, and for malfeasance in office. It secured a mandamus from Judge John Barton Payne ordering the assessor to meet with the Board of Review as the law requires to revise and correct assessments. This he appealed, and thus temporarily escaped its mandate. The appeal has been heard by the Apellate court and the appeal dismissed, which leaves the mandate operative.

The next step in the legal procedure, as the law provides, was to petition the county commissioners to revise and equalize assessments. But so great was the number of applications before this board, and so onerous were its regular duties, that it adjourned without taking action, claim

ing want of time and, in cases where assessments were to be raised, want of jurisdiction.

The next appeal was to the court, with preliminary injunctions, and two of the fairest judges on the bench, whose integrity is unquestioned, heard the complaint, but sustained a demurrer to the bill, on the ground that the county board should have been mandamused to do its duty when it complained that it had not sufficient time. In other words, it should have been compelled to take more time than the revolution of the earth on its axis provided for. A court of equity is supposed to be broader in its vision than a court of legality, for it follows the common law, which is common sense. The injunction being dissolved, the collector of taxes, accompanied by some associates who resembled in no particular college graduates or doctors of divinity, went to each protesting bank in turn and, upon threat of closing the doors of the bank, collected the illegal tax under protest. The levy was illegal, for the Illinois statute clearly provides how taxes on bank shares of stock shall be collected. It provides:

1. A list of stockholders shall be kept by each bank and the number of shares owned by each.

2. The county clerk shall ascertain and report to the assessor a correct list of such names and their residences and the number of shares of stock owned by each.

3. The assessor shall assess the valuation of such shares in the tax lists in the names of the respective owners, and the county clerk shall extend the tax on the same.

4. The collector of taxes may sell such shares of stock, upon which the tax is not paid, and the tax shall remain a lien upon such shares till the payment of said tax.

5. Officers of banks must retain dividends on such shares of stocks, upon which tax has not been paid, and the bank is liable only for dividends paid contrary to this act.

6. The collector of taxes shall sell said shares of stock.

to pay taxes thereon like other personal property. Stock cannot then be transferred until such tax is paid.

The amount of money illegally extorted from the banks was as follows, estimating one-tenth as a fair basis of assessment, which is what the new law, operative in 1899, provides.

The final step in this legal medley is now a suit on the collector's bondsmen or sureties for damages resulting from his actions in extorting money under threat of violence, and the measure of damages is the amount in excess of what both the federal and state statutes provide was a lawful tax.

The assessor who was the original sinner in this iniquitous proceeding was the joint product of the machine and the primary; he kept about him for legal advisers men whose whole study was to devise ways and means to defeat the law. This man was clothed by the statutes with a dig

nity and power, the right to estimate values of others' property, that belongs to no autocrat or king on earth. The law says he shall estimate property at a fair cash value, which may mean at full cash value; in which case it means confiscation, for the percentum of tax was nearly nine per cent. Such a revenue system as Illinois has had would compel merchants to become bribers, tax-dodgers, or bankrupts; for no man can remain in business and pay taxes on his personal property at a rate nine times that of his competitors.

The decisions of the Supreme court of Illinois have usually sustained assessors, and have been founded on the monstrous falsehood, that assessors are usually honest, and taxpayers usually dishonest. The assessor told the writer, when asked to adjust an assessment on a fair basis: "I am here for what there is in it."

He

After these unfair and illegal assessments on the banks had left the assessor's hands, not an officer of the law could be found to stay the injustice. The county commissioners were too busy. The county attorney did not stop to ask "what is right and just for these banks to pay compared with others," which is just what the statute provides. was hired to contest. Not justice, but a fight was what he wanted. He secured the assistance of a well-known quibbler, and the judges listened with patience, and a solemnity that was humorous, if it were not so serious, to the legal aspects of an attempt at highway robbery. Their decision that a court of equity has jurisdiction in matters of revenue only in case of fraud, and that they therefore had no jurisdiction, overlooked the fact that the inequality presented in the percentages of the banks was itself presumptive fraud, and they well knew that the assessor was under several indictments for alleged fraud in other cases.

A peculiar fact must here be recorded. It is usual for judges to notify the attorneys in a case when they are to

render a formal decision. But in these bank cases, involving nearly $200,000, the judges simply told the clerk of the court to enter their decision, and then to notify the attorneys in the case. The clerk proceeded to do so with rare skill and fidelity. He found the attorney for the town collector waiting in the hallway and at once told him of the decision, but he claims that the attorneys for the League were not notified because their telephone was busy. The collector, therefore, was given full opportunity to make his illegal levy before amended bills could be filed alleging actual fraud. Possession is nine points of the law. Not a protest has appeared from judge, clerk, attorney, commissioner, collector, assessor, or any other official for this raid upon the banks. Thus it is proved that the machinery for taxing is so sacred that there are evils which a court of equity cannot remedy; that in triumphant democracy a corrupt assessor may resemble Charles I., who said, "I am the state," and that when an assessor wants favors from a bank it is folly to refuse him.

The political science of the founders of this republic was simple, but it has been the admiration of students for two hundred years. It acknowledged the rights of the individual to life, liberty, property, and reputation; it made the state simply the conservator of these individual rights, because each man, no matter how humble, is the equal of every other man in the eyes of the law, and is entitled to the protection of the state, whether a taxpayer or not. Here come the unique notions of equality that are the bulwark of American institutions and have been our pride.

But this is the ideal; the practical is the reverse. A dishonest assessor can defeat the best laws; an honest assessor can utilize the most defective laws for the good of the taxpayer and the good of the state. The laws recognize no difference between the two. As Thomas Jefferson said: "The art of good government is the art of being honest."