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effort to exempt private property from its just part of taxation.
Instead of being a consideration moving to the city it is a proposition
leading the way and intending to lead the way to unloading of the Market
House Company's property on the city of Fort Worth, in the event the
same should not be a profitable enterprise. Why representatives of
the city government would pledge themselves to do what cannot be legally
done in the way of exempting property from taxation I cannot understand
and yet the City Council has obligated it self to do all these things
as a condition precedent to the begining on the part of the Market
Company of the building of this Market House. There is no use in
muddling this question of the power or want of power of the city to
exempt from taxation. The plane plain fact is that if the property is the pro-
perty of the Market Company during the five years mentioned it is sub-
ject to taxation. There is no pretense so far as I know that it could
be legally exempt from taxation except upon the idea that the city had
become so interested in the property, so under obligation to take it,
and so entangle with it as to virtually make it from the beginning the
city's property and not the property of the Market Company.

It is useless for me to again go in to a discussion of the
question as to whether a Market House as proposed in our city, especialy
if located at the point designated, would be a success or not.

It is needless for me to call your attention to the fact
that the city has need of many public improvements, which our pre-
sent funds are unsufficient to provide, much more than it needs to
lay out a large sum of money in the purchase of this property.

We need, it is true, more public grounds- public parks, etc., but when we
shall be able to buy either we should canvass the situation- advantise for pro-
positions if necessary, and look to the question of what is the best to
action location and gounds- and the most favorable offer- and not confine our-
selves to one offer- especially when we see it so tied on, to the
private interest of those offering it.