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Newspaper Page Text
Webb, the coffee merchant-politician.. The charge against Rosenwald is failure to file a personal property schedule in 1912, and in that way slipping out of paying taxes on $27. 000,000 Of Sears-Roebuck shares of stock. " - A jail sentence or a fine of $200 or both can be given Rosenwald if he is co,nvicted. The schools, playgrounds, hospit als, libraries and other public insti tutions of Cook county lose over $50. 000,000 a year because rich property owners laugh at the tax laws, lie about their property, hide it. swear falsely to the assessors about it The indictment of Rosenwald is one- the first moves of State's Att'y Hi "o find out whetherthe whole tax i 1 shall be carried by the little fellows who own little homes they can't hide from the assessors or lie about. Beore State's Att'y Hoyne's an nouncement came out nearly two years ago, in which he said he was going to dig into the tax situation and find out why the tax laws are a joke that millionaires laughed at, Rosenwald went along from year to year telling the assessors he had only a measly $100,000 of personal property taxable shares of stock in Sears, Roeubck & Co. He raised this to $250,000 one year. This year the board of assessors assessed tbp $27,000,000 of stock at $z,&uu,uuuf jtoy v. west, jpred Blocki and Thomas J. Webb, who the board of review and have the last say on tax assessments,cut the figures down to $1,255,458. A remark of Ass't State's Att'y Henry Berger is quoted today. Ber ger said when the tax cases first came before Judge Owens: "Somebody's going to jail before this is over." The law under which action against Rosenwald was based is one of the clearest laws written on the Illinois statute books. State's Att'y Hoyne says he wants it understood he isn't picking out- any special in dividuals for punisment. What he wants to get at is why tax laws by which Cook county loses $50,000,000 a year are a joke. Rosenwald openly admits he failed to file a tax schedule as the laws says he should. He says: "If the indictment against me is based solely on the charge that I didn't file a schedule of my personal property I am ready to plead guilty at once." A schedule blank is a sheet of pa per taken by assessors to the owner of property. The law says the prop erty owner shall write down on that sheet of paper all the personal prop erty he owns. If he Goesn't fill the sheet out and get it back to the as sessors he is guilty of a misdemeanor and can be jailed or made to pay a $200 fine. Rosenwald owns $27,000,000 of Sears-Roebuck shares of stock. He failed to report this to the assessors. The big point of Hoyne is that this game cheats the county out of $50, 000,000 of taxes a year. o o T. R., MOST FAMOUS-JOB LESS MAN, MAY BE AN ACTOR Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 31. Learn ing that Col. Roosevelt intends to lecture for the benefit of the unem ployed, the Migratory Workers of the World have gone him one better and voted to ask him to take the leading role in a hobo pageant-drama to be staged here as a "benefit." J. Eads How, king hobo, said the invitation would be forwarded to T. R. today. o o - ESCAPES JAIL; CAUGHT Wilbur Nash, colored, held in the county jail at Joliet pending action hy tie grand jury on a charge of rob-b-ag a Wells-Fargo express wagon, sawed the bars of his cell today and escaped. He was found two miles away by police and returned to jail before being missed by the officials. Before leaving Nash had robbed a number of fellow prisoners. ijfc4a.