TAXING COLLEGE PROPERTY

The following editorial from the Harvard Bulletin sums up the situation well and expresses the sentiments of the CRIMSON upon the subject of the taxation of college property:

The report of the Tax Commissioner of the State of Massachusetts, an abstract of which is printed elsewhere, may give additional impetus to the agitation for the taxation of property held by educational institutions in this state and especially the Cambridge holdings of Harvard University; for, the Tax Commissioner singles out Harvard and says the College has expanded until it is close to, if it has not already touched the point where it will be a burden on the city. This statement has been made many times but the truth of it has never been demonstrated. On the contrary, the friends of the College believe Harvard has brought to Cambridge not only very great intellectual and intangible advantages which are none the less real because they can not be measured in dollars and cents, but also the material benefit of taxable property; in other words, that the amount of taxable real and personal property which has been attracted to Cambridge by Harvard University and would not be there if Harvard were not there, exceeds the amount which would exist if the land now occupied by the College had been developed as the territory of Cambridge remote from the College has developed. These arguments have never been successfully controverted.

It is conceivable that if Harvard University continued indefinitely to take over and render exempt from taxation real estate which now pays taxes, the time might come when the College would be a burden on the city of Cambridge. But we believe there is little chance that the holdings of the University will increase much. The growth in recent years has been small, and it is easy to show that these additional exemptions have been more than counterbalanced by the real and personal property drawn to Cambridge by the University.

Of course, the property of the College was originally exempted from taxation not because the institution attracted to Cambridge other taxable property, but for other reasons which we need not go into here. Nevertheless, if it is a fact that Harvard has really added to, instead of taking from the taxable valuation of the city, that fact may fairly be brought out in answer to the statement that the College is a burden on the community.

The suggestion has been made more than once that Harvard would be better off if it were moved from Cambridge and placed in some spot more remote from the centre of population, and it is evident that certain advantages would come from such a change. But tradition and history have bound Cambridge and Harvard together so long that it would be a pity to have the ties broken. We hope and believe that the troublesome question of taxation may be settled once for all to the satisfaction of both the city and the University, and that they will continue to live together in complete amity.