Baltimore Evening Sun (14 September 1912): 6.

The boomers! The boomers! They’re coming back, b’gosh! And soon they’ll fill the papers with their entertaining bosh!

As thriftily tolerant as a Havre de Grace deacon * * * As prudently silent as a Havre de Grace sky-pilot * * *

Dan Loden has listened to all of Jake’s yarns about what he seen in Munich, but so far he don’t believe them Dutch have got anything to beat the Concord Club.

Why doesn’t the Hon. Fred. Wright, or some other expert, figure out the exact effect that the rejection of the Mayor’s sewer rental plan would have upon the tax rate? The gentlemen who have tackled the problem heretofore have all fallen into apparent (and sometimes quite obvious) errors. For example, the Aristides Sophocles Goldsborough, the rabble-rouser appointed by the Mayor (at $2,500 a year) to illuminate and enravish the vulgar. The Hon. Mr. Goldsborough, in the official statement he issued a fortnight ago, argued pathetically that the rejection of the rental plan would “shoot our rate up to $2.20,” an increase of 31 cents—and a palpable absurdity.

A mathematician hired for the purpose by the rascally Sunpaper promptly tackled Aristides and knocked him out. This mathematician showed that the taxpayers of Baltimore were already paying nearly half of the whole sewer tax—that the sections already completed were costing them, for interest and the sinking funds, the sum of $445,500 a year. He then figured that this expenditure absorbed 13½ cents of the existing tax rate of $1.89, and that but 15½ cents more would be needed to pay for the whole system, including the cost of maintenance. This brought him to an ultimate tax rate of $2.04½, or just 15½ cents less than the honey-tongued Aristides saw in his horrendous vision.

But even here, though Aristides’ boomiferous figuring was plainly improved, there were errors. So, at least, I believe. The taxable basis of Baltimore is now $723,800,340, and that valuation is distributed over various classes of property as follows:

For the purposes of the present argument, securities and savings bank deposits may be left out of account. The tax rate upon the former is 30 cents and upon the latter 18¾ cents, and both rates are fixed by law, so that no increase in the city budget can raise them. The rates upon suburban and so-called rural real estate are also fixed by law, but only in part. The rate upon the former is two-thirds of the city rate, but it cannot go beyond $1.30. The rate upon the latter is one-third of the city rate, but it cannot go below 65 cents. At the moment the former rate is $1.26, or exactly two-thirds of the city rate, and the latter is 65 cents, or one-third of the city rate plus 2 cents.

For the sake of clarity let us assume that this excess of 2 cents does not exist—i. e., that the suburban rate is exactly two-thirds and the rural rate exactly one-third. So assuming, it appears that the $16,438,656 worth of suburban property is equal, for taxing purposes, to just $10,959,104 worth of city property, and that the $28,092,448 worth of rural property is equal to $9,364,149 worth of city property. Now add these sums to $328,120,398, the value of city real estate, and to $81,736,126 the value of personal property taxed at the full rate and you have $430,179,813, which may be accepted as the true taxable basis of Baltimore for purposes of general taxation.

Well, what rate is needed to raise $445,000 a year on $430,179,813, supposing that $430,179,813 to bear the whole burden? Is it 13½ cents, as the Sunpaper’s mathematician figured? I think not. As I figure it with a towel around my head, it is actually about 10⅓ cents, or, say, 3 cents less. And how much more will have to be put on to bear the whole burden of the completed sewers? The Sewerage Commission estimates the overhead charge (for interest and sinking funds) at $836,000 a year, and adds $100,000 for maintenance. This makes $936.000 in all. Divide this by $430,179,813, and you get a rate of 21¾ cents, which represents the whole annual cost of the sewers in case the rental plan is rejected. Now subtract 10⅓ cents, the amount we are already paying, and you get, say, 11⅔ cents. This leads to a maximum tax rate of $2.00⅔—or 19⅓ cents less than the Hon. Mr. Goldsborough’s estimate, and nearly 4 cents less than the estimate of the man hired by the Sunpaper.

From part of this rate of $2.00⅔, of course, suburban taxpayers would make their escape, for two-thirds of it would be about $1.35, and the law provides that they are not to pay more than $1.30. But owners of so-called rural property would not escape, for it is a minimum and not a maximum that confronts them. For the sake of the argument, however, let us rule out both of these classes of property, and assume further that the taxes levied upon securities and bank deposits do not help to pay for sewers. This leaves us a taxable basis of $409,856,560. Well, upon this basis, the present cost of the sewers, $445,500, works out to a rate of 10.86 cents, and the whole cost of the completed system would work out to 23½ cents. Subtract 10.86 from 23½ and you get, say, 12⅔ cents, which, added to the present tax rate of $1.89, works out to $2.01⅔, or 18⅓ cents less than the Hon. Mr. Goldsborough’s estimate. Even assuming that the upkeep of the sewers will cost $1,100,000, as some one or other has figured, the tax rate cannot go above $2.05. We paid a cent more in 1904 and 6½ cents more in 1905.

Here, of course, I offer ammunition to the Hon. Mr. Wright, who is against sewer rentals and favors paying the whole bill out of the general tax rate. And here, perhaps, I fall into many errors. I am, of course, no mathematician. But I have shown pretty clearly, I believe, that a tax rate of $2.20 is moonshine, and that the other current estimates, on both sides, are not above suspicion. Why doesn’t some expert figure the thing out accurately? Why doesn’t the Mayor appoint a competent actuary to do it and give the public the result in detail? We amateurs merely boggle it.

Two or three months ago the small boys of Havre de Grace all dreamed of growing into Murray Vandivers. But now half of them want to be jockeys and the other half want to be bookmakers.

Motto of the stuffers at the coming election: Let nature take its course!