It appears that the insolent exploitation of Chicago and Cook County through the gentlemanly so-called farm "Board of Equalization" is to be repeated again this year. In the past year these "robbing farmers" increased the valuation of Cook County property by ninety-eight per cent, virtually doubling the tax in this locality to lighten the burden of other districts. This year, so it is asserted, the Board will not be quite so severe, but it will be bad enough. Real-estate values in Cook County will be increased seventy per cent. City and village building sites are to be assessed sixty-five per cent higher; likewise all personal property. In this manner the total taxable property in Cook County will be given an increased valuation of $120,000,000.

While the County represents only one seventh of the State's total population, it will have to pay three tenths, nearly one third, of the State's taxes.

Is there any redress against such an atrocity? Unfortunately not! The "robbing farmers" represent the majority in Illinois, and plurality is legal, which means: the power to control. Might precedes right in a republic as well as in a monarchy. Yea, perhaps we ought to be grateful that the farmers outside of Cook County do not shift the entire tax load upon those unfortunate counties which happen to have populous cities. The farmers can do that--their votes permit it. Knighthood in Prussia, only a few decades ago, enjoyed immunity from taxation at the citizens' expense. Why, then, should the farmers in our "Free Country" be prevented from achieving what the aristocracy did in a benighted autocracy: the privilege to let the common citizenry pay it all? The latter have at least one satisfaction which was denied to the people abroad: the right to assail their exploiters with the truth. We may growl and complain, but pay we must: that is one of the things included in our freedom and civic rights.