TAXATION IN AMERICAN STATES AND CITIES. BY RICHARD T. ELY, PH.D., LL.D. ? PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY AND DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL OF IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. ASSISTED BY JOHN H. FINLEY, A.B. PRESIDENT OF KNOX COllege, galESBURG, ILL. FOURTH THOUSAND. NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET PREFACE. ΤΗ HE present volume is not intended primarily for specialists, but for American citizens generally who are intelligent enough to appreciate the vast importance of the topic with which it deals. It is meant to be a popular work, but, it is hoped, in the better sense of the word. I have endeavored to keep the essential facts in mind, and to avoid all technical details which are not essential to an understanding of the main issues. The work is larger than I thought it would be as it is; and had I written an exhaustive treatise, such as I would have tried to write had my book been designed primarily for lawyers or political economists, it would have been necessary to publish four or five volumes instead of one. The specialist will then understand why much has been omitted which he would gladly have seen inserted. Perhaps the general reader will obtain an idea of the largeness of the subject of taxation in states and cities, when told that the bill itself presented by the Maryland Tax Commission to the legislature covered one hundred and twenty-one printed octavo pages. An adequate explanation of all parts of the bill would have required at least as many additional pages. A study of taxation is calculated to give one a rather pessimistic view of American laws, American institutions, and American character. As soon as one begins to examine the facts respecting taxes and tax-payers in our cities, one discovers that many an advocate of governmental reforms, loud in his professions, is |