Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — AS OTHERS SEE US. [ARTICLE]

AS OTHERS SEE US.

W. T. Moore, a representative of the Indianapolis Sentinel who has been taking a trip through the counties of north-western Indiana

in the interests of his paper, writes quite an interesting letter to the Sentinel of last Monday: Of Jasper county he says: The new court house in Jasper county is making the republicans of that county more trouble than they calculated upon when they contracted for its building. And there ate many members of the g. o. p. in Jasper county who would gladly go back to the old log court house that was destroyed in 1839 if they could escape from the responsibility of explaining how a building that was contracted to be built for §89,180 could up to this time cost §165,000 without anybpdy having stolen anything. The proceedings of the board of county commissioners have been most shameless. They have squanderedthe people’s money in junketing tours; not satisfied with making a tour through southern Indiana and Ohio to look at court houses, they even went to Detroit, Mich.,* ta look at a roof, and, most wonderful of all, they made a trip io Milwaukee, Wis., to see a clock which somebody told them kept good time, and it is rumored that they were accompanied from Chicago to Milwaukee on board the lake steamer that leaves Chicago in the evening by some very interesting and attractive experts in the clock business. The expenses on these trips aggregate into the thousands, * * * * The indignation of the people of the county, irrespective of party, has been aroused, and, notwithstanding the county has one of the best county buildings in this part of the state, the people feel that a county with a population of less than 15,000 souls and a tax duplicate of only §8,3-14,-593 could have gotten along with a much more modest structure. And then they are also aware that the §152,030 worth of bonds will cost the county before the debt is expunged, if that day comes within the time set, 1932, a trifle less than §350,000. It is altogether the most foolish expenditure of public money that has occurred in Indiana, and when compared with the expenditure by a democratic board of county commissioners in the neighboring county of Pulaski, it becomes simply criminal. In Pulaski the democratic board appropriated for court house purposes §50,000, and built one of the neatest and most complete county houses in the state Within that appropriation. In Jasper the commissioners appropriated §82,000 and then proceeded to spend §165,-

000, of which §152,000 is drawing interest at the rate of 4| per cent. Bring your buggy, wagon and harness wants to Judy and The Lief Buggy Company and they will supply you. They have the material and ability to do it.