USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume IV > Part 23
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4 Cf. Henry George's discussion of this subject in his great work, Progress and Poverty, and also many publications issued by Single Tax Leagues.
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should be such as to avoid double taxation of property of any kind, yet the report says that "double taxation is confined to bonds, mortgages and other evidences of ownership of tangible property, and cash, which is the medium of exchange." The tax commissioners will never be out of work. They save the State more than they cost, by making some property owners pay more taxes than they would if let comfortably alone.
For sixty-four years a commissioner has been standing guard over the insurance companies in New Hampshire. The com- panies insure against loss by fire, death, accidents and other risks, and then the people are taxed to pay a commissioner to insure them against losses that might be inflicted by the companies. The last report says, "It is interesting to note that in the earliest years of this supervision the revenue-producing function of the office was not considered, the sole duty of the commissioners being to safeguard the insuring public by examination and visita- tion of insurance companies." The commissioner was "a public servant to stand between the companies and the public to save the latter from the wrongful exactions of the former on account of their insolvency and dishonesty." The present commissioner, Robert J. Merrill, thinks that the new supervision should "analyze methods and costs and examine results, not only for the purpose of furnishing safe and honest protection, but to furnish such protection in such a manner and at such a price that the public gets value received for what it pays." Here is stated the sole reason for the existence of the commission. It is not to produce revenue, for it does not produce it, never has produced it and never can. When fees and taxes are taken from institu- tions supported by people of the State, so much additional bur- den is put upon the people for the maintenance of those insti- tutions. The burden put upon the companies is simply shifted to the insured, and they are made to pay for the supervision. Thus insurance costs more than it would, if honest companies did business without paying taxes and fees. When the people take money out of one pocket and put it into another, they are not getting rich, especially if they lose something in the transfer. There is not, strictly speaking, a revenue-producing office in the State House. They are all supported by direct or indirect taxa- tion of the inhabitants and property owners. The indirect taxa-
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tion is more acceptable, because it is not perceived by the many and is often made to appear as a direct income to the people. The last report of the insurance commissioner makes it appear that the income to the State from the insurance companies and associations for the year 1915, from taxes and fees, was $115,2II, while the expense was only $6,800. From the year 1890 to 1915, a quarter of a century, the income has been $1,483,654 and the expense has been only $150,724. Some may think that the State is getting rich. Instead of that it has been paying one hundred and fifty thousand dollars extra to protect its property during the last twenty-five years. The persons insured paid indirectly all those taxes and fees. Do not imagine that the insurance companies have been willing to contribute money to pay the running expenses of the State. The people who work earn all the money and pay all the taxes. The owner of a house rented adds up the interest on the investment, the cost of annual repairs, the water rates, the insurance, the taxes and all other expenses, and then he charges the tenant enough to cover them all. Thus he pays no taxes on that house. It is just so with the trader, who shifts his taxes to the consumer. The insurance companies do the same thing, and those who are insured pay all the bills.
An enormous amount of business is done by insurance com- panies in New Hampshire. There are seventeen town and two county insurance companies, and their total receipts and ex- penditures were about equal in 1914, $45,000. The insured got back in losses paid $31,972. It cost the difference to run the companies, or the people insured in those companies paid over $12,000 to get their property protected. There are five cash mutual fire insurance companies in New Hampshire. The aver- age ratio of losses paid to premiums received in 1914 was about fifty-four per cent. There are nine stock fire insurance com- panies, whose income was $4,869,327 in the year 1914, and the expenditures were one hundred and two per cent. of the income. There are one hundred and sixty-one other insurance companies, not of New Hampshire, that are doing business in this State, in fire and marine insurance, and they received in premiums $1,- 838,832 and paid out in losses $1,695,547. Why are there so many insurance companies? They must be making money, or
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they would go out of business. The rates must be too high, in order to enable so many companies of men to get rich. Perhaps the government of the State could run an insurance company more economically, even as is done in some other countries.
New Hampshire had six hundred and sixty-one fires in 1914, entailing a total loss on buildings and contents of $2,135,309, and the insurance paid to the losers was $1,467,172, so that property owners are insured only in part. If all property were insured for all it is worth, how long would it remain unconsumed?
There are twenty-four life insurance companies doing busi- ness in the State, and four assessment casualty companies, be- sides thirty-five fraternal beneficiary associations. The expense of all these is enormous. To keep life and property protected costs as much as a destructive war. So long as houses of wood may be built in close proximity and few brick and stone houses are fireproof, we shall continue to work at feverish heat and burn up our property about as fast as we earn it.
Insurance of any kind works like a lottery. What some gain others have to lose, and the managers have to be paid first. The owner of a large number of buildings could more economically bear an occasional loss and pay no taxes for insurance. The uncertainty of human life makes a person feel safer and happier, if his life is insured. He does not figure up the cost in most cases ; he simply wants to provide for his family in all possible emergencies. A great company of people get together and agree to distribute their losses each time that one suffers. Those who never have a fire and live to long age pay out a lot of money and get nothing but a feeling of safety through protracted years. They also have the satisfaction of having helped a num- ber of fortunate unfortunates.
On one door of the State House is written Pharmacy Com- mission. It is open occasionally, when somebody wants to be examined and get a license to serve as a druggist. Thus the community is protected from buying poison when they are seek- ing remedial drugs.
Then we come to the department of Public Instruction, that ' supervises the schools of the State and plans continually to educate the young people rather than to inform them; to pro- tect children from too hard labor; to teach through many insti-
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tutions industrial and mechanical arts. Perhaps as much as space will allow has been said about this department in the chapter on education.
In the southwest corner of the ground floor is the depart- ment of Vital Statistics, under the direction of Dr. Irving A. Watson. He has devised an original way of arranging all the births, marriages and deaths that have been recorded in the towns of the State from the beginning of their history up to date. All are alphabetically arranged by surnames, and geneal- ogists can find quickly what they want, if those ancient people were sensible enough to get themselves properly recorded, and if the town clerks did their duty, and if the original town records have not been burned or lost. Old soldiers come here to get a birth certificate in order to secure a pension. Lads just out of school and eager for a job come here for proof that they are old enough for the job. The recorded marriage is a salutary re- straint to some people and is valuable for the securing of an inheritance. The record of deaths and their causes and the ascertained rate of mortality is useful for the preservation of the health of every community. It is like feeling the pulse of a feverish patient. To know how many married couples are divorced sets many a thinking. The last report, 1913-14, shows that 4,292 marriages are offset by 620 divorces, and 9,236 births are to be weighed against 7,475 deaths, in the year 1913. The children of foreign parentage nearly equal in number those of American parents, while the number of marriages where both persons are Americans is about three times the number where both persons are of foreign birth. The mixed marriages in a year foot up to nine hundred and nineteen, with equal hospitality to strangers shown by young men and young women. The causes of divorce are in their order abandonment, extreme cruelty, adultery and habitual drunkenness. The last mentioned leads often to the other three. More than twice as many women as men sue for divorce. One married couple out of seven seek divorce. The diseases that take people off in New Hampshire are in the order of number of victims: heart disease, tubercu- losis, pneumonia, apoplexy, diarrhea and cholera infantum, and cancer, besides a host of minor ills that flesh and ignorance are heirs to. Comparatively few die of old age; most persons die
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before they would if they knew more and behaved better. Such are a few of the facts that may be learned by perusing the report of the bureau of vital statistics.
The Fish and Game Commissioners seek to protect and in- crease the number of fish, birds and wild animals, such as delight fishermen and hunters. There is plenty of law and they look after its enforcement. The State has three hatcheries, at Cole- brook, Laconia and Conway, and a fourth is recommended, at Warren. These hatcheries distribute 5,425,000 fish in a year to the eight hundred ponds of New Hampshire. Sportsmen are told that they can fish at certain times and take fish of a certain length, and must stop when they get enough. The fishing is chiefly for sport, recreation, health, and not for revenue. The same is true of hunting. Last year over six thousand deer were killed in the State, worth about seventy thousand dollars. The revenue accruing from fines and forfeitures, licenses and per- mits, was over thirty-seven thousand dollars, and a thousand sportsmen brought a lot of money into the State, far more than they carried out. The fee for a hunter's license is ten dollars. A permit to hunt and fish issued to a resident of the State costs one dollar.
The Adjutant-General is Charles W. Howard, and in his office and last report we learn the condition of the military force. The old militia days have passed, when all able-bodied men were enrolled. New Hampshire may be prepared to quell riots, but she certainly is not ready for war with any foreign power. There are 1,317 enlisted men and ninety-four officers. They are organized into one infantry regiment, one troop of cavalry, one field battery, one battalion of coast artillery, one machine gun company, one signal company and one hospital corps detach- ment. They are armed with the latest weapons, clothed and equipped for instant service, at the expense of the United States government. Most of the military stores are in the arsenal at Concord. There are armories at Concord, Manchester and Nashua, and a forth is in process of erection at Portsmouth. From October to June instruction is given once a week in the armories, and once a year there are five or six days of marching, instruction in camp and maneuvers. There is also target prac- tice at ranges and on the sea coast. The President of the United
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States may call the State troops into active service whenever the need of them arises. They constitute a part of the National Guard. The annual expense is about fifty thousand dollars, and the other expenses of the Adjutant-General's department bring the total expenses for military purposes up to about $66,000.
Leaving the office of the State Treasurer for later mention, we will ascend to the second floor by one of the two marble staircases, or by the south elevator, which is always at service. We are brought immediately to the spacious hall of the House of Representatives, considerably enlarged in 1910 to accommo- date New Hampshire's unequalled number of representatives. There are chairs upholstered in leather for four hundred and twenty-one, arranged in four divisions of a semi-circle in grad- ually ascending ranks. On the wall back of the Speaker are full- length portraits of Washington, Webster, Hale, Pierce and the Governors Wentworth. In the rear is a gallery with seats for two hundred and fifty. The hall is well lighted by day or by night, and its acoustic properties are excellent. It has rung for a hundred years with a good deal of eloquence and patriotic talk, and has witnessed some political wrangles and filibustering.
The Senate chamber is north of the Representatives' hall. It has seats for twenty-four senators, and each one has a private desk, a luxury that the House can not afford for lack of space. The floor space is thirty-five by forty-four feet, and there is a gallery for visitors.
In these two halls the legislators meet once in two years and proceed to repeal old laws and make new ones, a process that will always be necessary in order to fit eternal principles to changing conditions. Their so-called laws are only transitory precepts, for fundamental laws can not be changed by man. The legislators could as easily create a universe as make a real law, in the philosophic meaning of that word.
The first office that meets the eye, near the elevator, is a recently created one, that of the commissioner of motor vehicles, Arthur L. Willis. For ten years, until 1915, the work of this office was done under the direction of the Secretary of State. The number of automobiles during that time has grown to 13,502, and the receipts for licenses during the last year were
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$257,776, all of which is turned into the office of the State Treas- urer and goes for the maintenance of good roads. The fee varies from ten dollars to forty, and summer visitors ride at half rates, while there is a neutral zone for fifteen miles each side of the State line, where automobilists from the other side of the line may ride for an annual fee of two dollars. All drivers of automobiles have to pass examination. The fee for a profes- sional chauffeur is five dollars and one dollar for renewal. The fee for an operator or owner of a car, who prefers to do his own driving, is three dollars and one dollar for renewal. During the year 1915, 4,729 chauffeurs and 12,625 operators were licensed. These figures give some idea of the extent of the auto- mobile business in New Hampshire, and the registration for 1916 indicates an enormous increase in this business and pleas- ure. The department of motor vehicles licensed also 1,550 motorcycles during the last year. Four clerks are kept busy. Is the office a producer of revenue? No, it only collects an indirect tax. The State probably does not collect any more from persons who live outside the State than its own inhabitants pay to other States. Here is another instance of taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another, thus awakening the pleasing fancy that the State is making money. Meanwhile the automobilists and the riders of motorcycles pay all that is collected, including the salaries of the collectors. But it is an easy and delightful way of paying taxes, and the well-to-do and the extravagant bear the burden, unless they can somehow con- trive to shift it.
The Secretary of State, Edwin C. Bean, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, has issued the ninth annual report, though the first report, in 1907, contained the sixteenth annual report of returns of corporations. In this office are registered the annual returns of corporations and abstracts of their records, trade marks, commissions of appointments' to office by the governor and council, names, residences and date of appoint- ments of notaries public and justices of the peace, resignations, pardons of lawbreakers, paroles from State Prison and licenses for peddlers. A list of fees for legislative counsel, agents and employees for the session of 1915 is of interest. It foots up to about thirty thousand dollars, besides many blanks and "sal-
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aries" unreported. Sixty-eight lawyers and legal firms are repre- sented, so that the lawmakers should have been well instructed in law. The big fees represented railroads and manufacturing corporations.
In this office are stored and indexed the records of New Hampshire as a province. The land records comprise fifty thousand manuscript pages of large size. The probate records fill twenty-six volumes of five hundred pages each. A card index of wonderful completeness tells the genealogist and his- torian about what he wants to know without the trouble of look- ing at the full deed or probate record. Of the earliest books of record all names incidentally mentioned are indexed. There is another index of court files, or papers used in court proceedings, arranged in 31,000 numbered folders and comprising 300,000 separate pieces. The index, a work of labor and carefulness, the thought of which makes one tired, tells the names of plain- tiff and defendant and what each folder contains, such as writs, deeds, wills, depositions, inquisitions, notes, etc. Here are the "Happy Hunting Grounds" of genealogists. Here is a mine of local and interesting history that has not been sufficiently worked. Here the searcher may stumble upon old original docu- ments of great value. One could reconstruct the history of New Hampshire as a province from the records of this office, and if only the court files were used, the most interesting history of all could be written. Many items therefrom have been utilized in this work.5
The fees from the office of the Secetary of State turned into the State Treasurer for the year 1915 amounted to $165,432, although much of this amount was derived from licensing of motor vehicles before the creation of a special department for that purpose. Those who want an abstract of the service per- formed by some ancestor in the Revolutionary or Colonial wars can get the same by correspondence for one dollar. That is easier than to gather genealogical information for nothing.
At the west end of the State House, on the second floor is a suite of rooms for the use of the governor and council. The floor is of quartered oak covered with a green velvet carpet. The finishing and the furnishings are of mahogany. The council
5 See Appendix A.
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chamber is a beautiful apartment in its proportions, coloring and adornments. Portraits of the more recent governors hang upon the walls, quite different in size and lifelikeness from the por- traits of the governors in former years. These too must be crowded into the corridors or into an art museum, to make room for the governors to be.
The tenth biennial report of the State Board of Charities and Correction gives facts and statistics for the years 1913-14. The board consists of five persons appointed for five years. Their duty is to inspect all state and county charitable or correctional institutions. They have a host of people, old and young, to look after. There are eight hundred and fifteen children in alms- houses, orphans' homes, industrial school and private families where they have been placed, who are dependent on public funds for support. Homes are found for the children as rapidly as possible. There are eighteen orphans' homes and asylums, con- taining one thousand three hundred and fifty-two inmates. The State orphanage is at Franklin and has one hundred and eight boys and fifty-five girls. The school for the feeble-minded at Laconia is filled to its utmost capacity and new buildings are being erected. There are 1,937 persons in the almshouses of the counties, most of them because of old age and feeblemindedness. Five hundred and ninety of them are of foreign birth. Two thou- sand one hundred and thirty-two in one year have been com- mitted to houses of correction, and one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six of them were committed for drunkenness. The jails received in 1914 eight hundred and twenty prisoners. These prisoners cost the counties about $34,000. Three hundred and seven blind persons are reported, and some of them are placed in institutions outside of the State. The deaf and dumb still are sent to the well known institution at Hartford, Conn. The sol- diers' home at Tilton has cared for eight hundred soldiers and sailors since its establishment in 1890. The State has a sana- torium in the town of Benton for the benefit of those afflicted with tuberculosis and between the years 1909 and 1914 four hundred and eighty-three patients were admitted. There is another sanitorium, for the indigent, at Pembroke, established in 1913. The work of stamping out this dread disease has just begun. Indoor life sends the majority to these institutions, and very many wait till it is too late to effect a cure.
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New Hampshire has sixteen homes for the aged, eighteen homes for the young, and six other homes, all of these being private institutions. There are thirty-one hospitals, that are private institutions. There are from a dozen to a score of chari- table associations, and private charity does full as much for the needy as the State does. The outdoor relief given through town overseers of the poor amounts to $241,000 in one year. Everything that pertains to the care of the poor, the sick, the distressed, and the criminals comes under the oversight of the Board of Charities and Correction. The burden seems to grow heavier every year. The cost of prisons, jails, almshouses, insane asylum, homes, orphanages, hospitals, institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, sanatoria, and such like is enormous. The use of alcoholic beverages is the largest cause of poverty and crime ; yet the State grants licenses to produce criminals, feeble-minded and insane persons and paupers, and then benevolent people and the State and county institutions spend heaps of money to care for the special products of the saloon. Behold economy and statesmanship !
The Public Service Commission next claims our attention. There are three commissioners, who employ experts, clerks and assistants and run up a bill of expense to the State of about thirty thousand dollars. Is the commission worth what it costs? What do they accomplish? Here is one little item of work done in 1913. Charles C. Battey, assistant engineer in the railroad division, "traveled on foot over the I,172 miles of track of the Boston & Maine, Maine Central and Grand Trunk railroads in New Hampshire, examined the condition of the road bed, ties, rails, connections, signals, guards, etc., and gave careful atten- tion to each one of the 697 bridges having ten feet or more clear span, including their abutments. He inspected each of the 1,255 grade crossings, overhead bridges and underpasses, and each of 374 depots or stations. He filed a report in detail of this entire work. Eight bridges were reported as unsafe or requiring at- tention." Four hundred and sixty-nine grade crossings have been improved by the cutting of trees and brush and the removal of other obstructions to the view, fifteen will be protected with flagmen, thirty will be equipped with automatic gongs and lights, and about twenty-five will be rendered safe by restric- tions on the speed of trains. So much for oversight of railroads in one year. The commission also regulates passenger, freight
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and express rates, so that public carriers can not charge all that the industry will bear. To save life and property is the work of the commission. Does it not pay? All fatal accidents are reported immediately to the commission for investigation.
The commission has oversight of two hundred and twenty- two active utilities, including telegraphs, telephones, water works, gas, dams, boats, bridges and street railroads. The investigation of gas rates in Manchester saved the people about $24,000 annually, unless poorer gas was furnished after the investigation. Gas meters are tested and ten per cent. are found to be fast, thus increasing the cost. One electric meter was one hundred per cent. fast, and the company had to refund three hundred dollars. Public utilities are not for the sole purpose of money making; they must serve all the people adequately and at fair and reasonable rates. The Public Service Commission furnishes a soul to corporations and makes them subject to moral and civil law. It is one of the most beneficial institutions in the State, and although the fees it collects from boats are not large, yet the people can not afford to abolish the commission. It pays well by protecting the people from overcharges and by providing safeguards against physical injuries and destruction of human life.
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