Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (Volume 8) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: members elected to each house"; by Section 18 of the same Article it forbids any appropriation to any denominational or sectarian institution, corporation or association, or to any person or community for charitable, educational or benevolent purposes, except for pensions or gratuities for military services; Section 19, however, allowing appropriations to institutions for the support or education of the widows and children of soldiers. Why the navy and its gallant men are ignored, unless supposed to be included within the terms "military services" and "soldiers," it is not easy to understand. The sum of these three sections is that appropriations are limited, except in cases of pensions for military services, and the support and education of the widows and children of soldiers: (a) To corporations for charitable or educational purposes (b) Which are not denominational or sectarian (c) If two-thirds of both houses vote therefor. These limitations experience has shown to be far too slight; but when we recall that at the time of the adoption of the constitution the average appropriations for all such purposes did not exceed $200,000 per year, it is clear that the danger did not then seem great. Since the adoption of the Constitution, however, the figures have largely increased, as will appear by the following table, which for the purpose of comparison gives the aggregate appropriations for each legislative session during the past 40 years, the population during that period, and the assessed value of all the property in the Commonwealth. It is not claimed that the latter represents the actual wealth within the State, but in view of the constantly growing demand for more revenue without increasing the tax rate it is certainly more nearly so than it was forty or even ten ...