Hemingray Glass Company - Covington, Kentucky

The Scheme Laid Bare.

Let us tax-payers sit down together and see what you are asked by the pier bridge schemers to do for them, and what burdens you will bring upon yourselves by voting upon your property a tax sufficient to give away $30,000 a year to pay the interest on $600,000 of city bonds.

We now state that the charge that the Suspension Bridge receives over $225,000 per year in tolls is a bare faced fabrication, and the charge that it receives $600 per day in tolls is another one of the same kind.

And now, for the information of the tax-payers of Covington, we state upon reliable information, which statement is true, we vouch for its accuracy.

Take from the receipts of the Suspension Bridge every year the toll paid by the following large toll payers: The Licking Rolling Mill (Henry Worthington), Droege's foundry, Walsh & Kellogg's distillery and the other distilleries, the Covington Transfer Company, the Hemingray Glass Works, Mitchel & Trenter's rolling mill, the breweries, the Kentucky Central (in effect now the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company), and the tobacco establishments, then the sum of all the tolls paid by the balance of the people of Covington for all purposes, foot and vehicle, street railroads, and tolls of every conceivable kind, do not reach $30,000 per year.

In other words raise $30,000 per year and pay it to the Suspension Bridge and that bridge would be free to all foot passengers and all vehicles, all street railroad passengers residing within the city of Covington, except the business vehicles of the large concerns above enumerated.

By this statement the gigantic fraud attempted to be palmed upon the tax-payers of Covington is made to stand out in clear view before the Covington tax-payers.

These schemers ask you to give them $30,000 per year, and when their bridge is done what do you get in return? — only these:

Free FOOT-WAYS and HALF tolls for everything else.

So that, either you have given them $30,000 per year, which would pay ALL your TOLLS OF EVERY KIND on the Suspension Bridge, making THAT TO YOU an absolutely FREE BRIDGE, you still have to pay this pier bridge ONE-HALF toll, and to THAT EXTENT you bring upon yourselves tolls above what you are now paying.

But still further, by the seventeenth section of the pier bridge charter, the City Council is required "annually" to levy and collect a tax, in addition to the $30,000 per year, to provide for the extinguishment of the principal gift, $600,000, at maturity, and this you will observe, MUST be done every year, "ANNUALLY," says the charter, for forty years. Now divide the $600,000 by 40, the number of years the bonds are to run, and you have for a quotient $15,000 to be added to the $30,000, and together they make $45,000 per year. This $15,000 per year, and the half tolls you must pay on the pier bridge, are all LOST to you and so much FOUND by the pier bridge men, because the $30,000, as stated above, will pay all your tolls, EVERYBODY'S TOLLS residing in Covington — on the Suspension Bridge, with the above exceptions. The large concerns above excepted do not wish the general tax-payers, the widows, orphans, and all, all to pay their tolls, as they, out of the profits of their large establishments, are abundantly able to pay their own tolls. In considering the foregoing statement, the reader will notice that the tax-payers of Covington only are considered; the tolls they pay are calculated against the $30,000 per year.

WHO ELSE PAYS TOLLS? Answer — The people of Cincinnati, Ludlow, West Covington, Newport, Kenton County, and all the world outside of Covington — all who cross the bridge.

Surely, the people of Covington do not wish to tax themselves to pay toll for all those crossers of a bridge, whether at half or full tolls.

These bridge schemers, assuming that the receipts of the Suspension Bridge all come from the PEOPLE OF COVINGTON, and after falsely putting them from a third to a half more than they actually are, attempt to make the people believe that by taxing themselves to build a new bridge THEY (the tax-payers) will save ALL THESE PREPOSTEROUS sums, when the fact is they are voting the tax — nearly, if not quite, doubling their tolls — for the one purpose of putting money into the pockets of five men, two of whom reside in Toledo, on in Maysville, and tow straddle the Ohio river at Covington; and yet they expect to blind the tax-payers of Covington by howling "Monopoly! Monopoly! Look at the Suspension Bridge" We say, "Look at the Sharpers! Schemers! Faistders!" And to tax-payers we say: "Look at the scheme, look at the toll books, look at your pocket-books, your tax bills, and think before you leap!"

Taking the above statement as to the tolls paid on the Suspension Bridge by you as true — and it is true — and ask who beside you pay tolls, and you can see at a glance how false in fact, how deluding in intention, are all the flowing pier bridge statements that have been spread throughout the city.

One word more. Suppose the Pier Bridge act is finally declared unconstitutional, as was the Boone County Bounty Fund act and the entire tax is saddled by the Court upon only those who vote for it, then how much tax are you voting upon yourselves? This, if the "yes" vote prevails, is not only possible, but probable.