Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1912 — TAGGART HAS FAILING MEMORY ABOUT MONEY. [ARTICLE]

TAGGART HAS FAILING MEMORY ABOUT MONEY.

Democratic Boss and Former National Chairman Burned the Books of the 1904 Parker. Campaign. Tom Taggart; boss of the. democratic party in Indiana, burned the books that contained the secrets of the 1904 national campaign. Taggart was called before the senate committee on campaign expenditures at Washington Tuesday. He was. asked about the money received for the 1904 Parker campaign, which he managed. He said that he “burned the books and other dead matter” prior to the democratic campaign of 1908. He could not remember anything about the amount of money received; how much there was, who contributed it or how it was spent. He had heard that August Belmont, Thomas F. Ryan and Carl 'Meyer, of New York, had contributed, but he did not know how much. He did not rdmember how much he contributed himself. He said he thought he was safe in saying SI,OOO. Tom said he thought the committee of which he was chairman had twenty

or thirty men soliciting funds thrQUghout the United States. He said that George F. Peabody was-ehairman of the committee. He got the books later but burned them and his memory had entirely failed him about the receipts and disbursements. Democrats, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that Tom Taggart, who burned, the books which showed their contributions, without making any report either to them or to anyone else, is still doing business In Hoosierdom, dividing his time between boosing the democratic party of the state and running his gambling dens at French Lick. The official bulletin issued by the department of commerce and labor at Washington gives Indiana a population, based on the figures of 1910, of 2,700,876, "an increase over the previous years of 184,414. One boy was made deaf and another unconscious for several hours by lightning which struck a house in Tolleston Monday. Gien Fifleld, 19 years old, lost his hearing, and Frank Kurtz- 21 years old, was seriously injured by the bolt.