Again, Chicago

STATES & CITIES

"If Judge Jarecki rules against us," mourned Mayor Anton Joseph Cermak of Chicago last week, "we might have to close the City Hall."

Against Mayor Cermak was precisely how Judge Edmund Kasper Jarecki did rule, holding the 1928-29 Cook County tax rolls invalid. Unless the State Supreme Court reverses the decision, new tax rolls will have to be compiled before $140,000,000 in back revenue can be collected. That sum represents a 22.2% nonpayment for 1928. 35.3% for 1929. Inasmuch as the 1930 rolls are based on those for 1928, they are presumably invalid. No attempt has yet been made to collect either 1930's or last year's taxes.

Bone of contention was an old one. A group of real estate taxpayers complained that nearly 15 billion dollars worth of personal property in Cook County had not been assessed. The County's personal property tax. nominally levied on cash, stocks, bonds and other forms of wealth, is regarded by most Chicagoans as a ridiculous nuisance to be shrugged off. It was no laughing matter, however, to Judge Jarecki. "Barely one-half of the taxable property of Cook County has found its way into the assessment roll," he stormed. "Can it be maintained that an assessment so flagrant, so reeking with fraud, can be held to be a good roll?"

Two days later, three local bodies with-in Cook County defaulted on bond principal and interest: the West Park Board, the Forest Preserves, the Sanitary District. The first two were second offenders. Total failure-to-pay amounted to $2,500,000. By Feb. 1 the County and the schools were also expected to be in default for $1,278,000 unless something very unforeseen intervened.

A caucus of 58 Cook County Legislators met, proposed to draft a bill to fund $388,000,000 worth of Cook County's unpaid 1928-30 taxes. It was quite evident that, with the County in technical default for $1,868,400 due last June, investors would be slow indeed to buy any more of Mayor Cermak's tax anticipation warrants. Last week speculation as to a possible receivership for Chicago grew louder & louder.

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