or using a different species of tax. This was forestalled either by an implicit faith in the salutariness of the uniformity rule or a slavish deference to the letter of the constitution. An attempt to commute taxes from railway companies, for services they might be called upon to render in carrying troops and muntions of war, was balked by an adverse decision. The measure was held to violate "the equality and uniformity" requirement.[1] On the other hand attempts to use the constitutional provisions as a means to block special assessments for the securing of public improvements were not sustained by the courts. So long as the assessments did not exceed the benefits accruing to the property and were in proportion to the benefits derived, the court held the uniformity and equality requirement not traversed.[2] The supreme court of the state has had to pass, too, upon the question as to whether varying total levies for all purposes in different taxing jurisdictions were not in violation of the constitutional restrictions requiring an equal rate.[3]
Exemptions—The attitude toward the constitutional pro- visions pertaining to the matter of exemptions has striking illustration. The constitution provides that property "only for municipal, educational, literary, scientific, religious or chari- table purposes" * * * "may be specially exempted by law." notwithstanding the fact that the legislature was subject to these explicit constitutional restrictions and had no warrant for relieving a certain minimum amount of property of each tax-payer, yet such exemption was provided for by law during the whole period of statehood down to 1900, when the con- stitutionality of the law was called into question and the practice ceased only to be resumed under another statute.[4]
Salaries—While the taxation clauses of the constitution have held the main features of Oregon's system of taxation
