Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 204, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 August 1910 — No Money on Hand to Prosecute Township Trustees. [ARTICLE]

No Money on Hand to Prosecute Township Trustees.

Attorney General Bingham has discovered where the public accounting law has put him up against a perplexing proposition. The governor recently referred to the attorney general the case of thirty township trustees whom the state accounting board has found short* In their accounts, with instruction to bring suit to recover the amount of the alleged shortage.! Thousands of dollars are involved in ». - f the cases and if they can be pushed to a finish they will result in a good return to the townships in which the shortages were discovered. But the s attorney general is at a loss to know jußt what to do with the cases. Whenever suit is filed by the attorney general in one of these cases ft will be necessary for him to employ a local attorney in the county in which the suit is filed to look after the case. The local attorney will have to see the various motions and other legal maneuvers preceeding the trial. There will be law questions raised, motions made for continuance and other “Jockeying” indulged in as in ordinary law suits. It would be impossible for the attorney general or his deputies to be on hand every time and every place. It 1s generally agreed, too, that it would hardly be expected as a part of the duty of the county attorney to look after these prosecutions. The chief trouble that confronts the state authorities now is, that the attorney general only has SI,OOO in his fund with which to employ attorneys in prosecuting cases against township trustees. This is all that is allowed by the legislature each year. A SI,OOO will not go very far in hiring lawyers to look after a hundred or more of this class of cases. It would cover the expenses of a few cases but the rest of them would be left unprovided for. The governor has not sufficient money in his contingent fund to employ lawyers- for the attorney general, so it* seems to be up to the legislature at its next session to make some provision to relieve the present situation.