JOHNS REVIEW
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ST. JOHNS, PORTLAND, OREGON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1921.
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Make the Vote Unanimous
Heavy responsibility rests on the shoulders of the voters and taxpayers of St. Johns
in-connection with the present intensive campaign for the passage of the $2,000,000
1925 exposition tax measure at the special city .election on Saturday, November 19th.
St. Johns must show the rest of the city, the whole state, and even the nation that she
is solid behind the exposition project or it will impair her chances of securing the loca
tion of the stupendous physical plant where the world's greatest exposition will be held.
Sti. Johns is an open and avowed candidate for the honor of housing the coming world's
fair. Her people have been boosting for. many months for the great project, and more
particularly with a view of having the Fair located right at our very doors.
Vigorous efforts are being made by the progressive group of citizens who believe
they have a splendid chance of securing the site for the exposition, but the results of
their strenuous campaign to roll up favorable sentiment will depend greatly upon the
actual results of the election in this district. If St. Johns is not a unit behind the tax
measure, it will be a notice to the rest of the city that St. Johns is lukewarm for the Fair
and is therefore not a suitable host to entertain the gigantic undertaking.
Exposition leaders have sent numerous workers into the St. Johns district and they
have been carrying the message of 'the 1925 exposition out into the large productive in
dustries where there are large numbers of employes and big payrolls, and it is in such
industrial sections where the Fair boosters look for the strongest support for the cam
paign measure.
Opponents of the exposition tax proposition have been spreading reports that thM
is to be a "rich man's fair and that the heavy load is to he saddled onto the shoulders
of the small property owners." Absolute denials of this report have been voiced by the
exposition' campaign leaders and they have the actual figures to prove that these charges
are unfounded. Court house records show that the average assessment in the St. Johns
district is only $474, so that the average cost to the property owners of this district tot
the entire exposition, both city and state tax, would be only $1.57 a year, or a total of
$4.72 for three years, and that amounts to less than half a cent a day, and none of this
tax is to be collected until in the Spring of 1923. As a matter of fact, the average as
sessment against property in St. Johns is among the very lowest in the city, and there
fore the taxpayers of this section will have a proportionate smaller part of the exposi
tion cost to pay.
It is a well known fact that the districts where there are large numbers of produc
tive and essential industries are the ones that reap the most and lasting benefits from
such great enterprises, and for this reason the exposition leaders say that St. Johns
should roll up an unusually heavy favorable vote at the city election, aside from the
fact that St. Johns is in the field as a contender for the honor of holding the exposition.
-ST. JOHNS COMMUNITY CLUB
NUMBER 1