Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1916 — INDIANA VOTERS WILL NOT FORGET [ARTICLE]

INDIANA VOTERS WILL NOT FORGET

Taxpayers Sea Through Taggart's Eleventh-Hour Economy Conversion, HIS RECORD IS TOO PLAIN » Never Heard to Object to Democratic Extravagance In Conduct of Indiana’s Affairs. At the moment considerable noise is being made by faithful, but unthinking agents of Tom Taggart, over the fact that the sage of French Lick has suddenly been converted to ths notion that the present Democratic congress has wasted public money with a prodigality and recklessness that has never been known in the political history, of the country.- In a speech recently in the senate Taggart, in an attack on the "pork barrel bill,” sanctioned everything that the Republican opposition had been saying regarding the waste of public funds by the Democratic congressional associates, among whom was John Adair, who is on the ticket with Taggart in Indiana. Adair voted for the bills that Taggart criticized. Somehow- or other this assumption of the role of "watchdog of the treasury” by “Oily Tom” calls to mind the old couplet: "When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; When the devil was well, a devil of a monk was he.” Taggart for economy in the handling of taxpayers’ money! Can you beat it? Did anyone in Indiana ever hear of Taggart raising his voice against adding hundreds of needless employes to the Indiana payroll? No man has had more power in the Indiana Democratic organization in re. cent years than this same Taggart. If he had been opposed to such reckless expenditure of public funds as has characterized the present Democratic administration all he would have to do to stop it would have been quietly to have let out a hint. Did he do it? If he did, no one ever heard of it. Did anyone ever hear Taggart raise a protest against the decision of the 1913 state legislature to boost the state tax levy to a new high record? Did anyone ever hear Taggart protest against the creation, for the benefit of “deserving Democrats” of Innumerable boards and commissions to further burden the taxpayers of Indiana? It is said that Taggart intends to make his fight against extravagance in the conduct of public affairs the basis of his fight for election to the senate. Tom is now a candidate and possibly the matter may look a little different to him from what it formerly did but the observation is inevitable, after a careful study of his course in politics, that he has never at any time possessed a wide reputation for having preached and assisted in practicing public economy. “His eleventhhour conversion is liable to force the conclusion that he is practicing something in Washington that he never preached, let alone practiced in Indiana, Taggart needs votes, hut his record in Indiana is so plain and so directly opposed to his recent public statements that Indiana taxpayers properly have his “number.” His agonized cry for economy in the expenditure of public money will attract support to himself only when Indiana taxpayers are able to forget the reckless extravagance of the Taggart organization in Indiana. There is not much of a chance that they will ever forget —the record is too plain. Until that time comes, Mr. Taggart and his associates very fittingly will find the taxpaying voters withholding their support with the observation “Actions speak louder than words.”