Queer Rancher This

     Conconully, Aug. 29.—Rather than pay taxes which, according to his socialistic beliefs, are unwarranted, an Okanogan county [sic] rancher has cut down the trees on 20 acres of bearing orchards, and refuses to pay on the valuation of $[?]0 an acre, fixed by the assessor.
     These orchards have been his principal source of revenue and he has always been able to sell the fruit at a good figure. This spring, when the valuation of orchard lands throughout the county was raised by the assessor, he began cutting down his trees, and when the deputy called to appraise his ranch, showed the denuded lands and insisted on their classification as plow-lands.—Associated Press.

     The Conconully rancher is no more a socialist than was Czolgosz, the murderer of McKinley. Both may call themselves socialists, but they are just as liable to call themselves esoteric-transcendentalists with leanings toward spasmodic Parseeism. In either case the man is not in a condition mentally to classify his belief or to hold to any belief consistently and reasonably. The Conconully rancher is obviously insane, as Czolgosz was obviously insane besides being underwitted.
     Socialism is no more responsible for the Conconully man’s vagaries than the Christian religion is responsible for the fact that the insane asylums are full of people who have gone insane from worrying over baptism, regeneration and sanctification; than the doctrine of philosophic anarchy is responsible for the murder of McKinley. Czolgosz claimed to be both socialist and anarchist, whereas he couldnot [sic] have been both any more than a man can be a free trader and a high tariff advocate at the tame [sic] time—any more than a compound can at one and the same time be an oil, or an acid.
     Socialism is not responsible (though the Associated Press would have us believe otherwise) for the Conconully man’s refusal to pay taxes.
     The doctrine of socialism in the Conconully man’s case fell into a mind that was warped and “checked” in the first place, and if it had not been socialism to “lay it to” he would have probably dug up some passage of Scriptures to justify his irrationalness. In any event he was determined to “go bughouse” in some way. Certain it is that not a single tenet of any school of socialism can be found that will justify non-payment of taxes or non-acquiescence in any of the laws of the land.