Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1898 — Democratic State Ticket. [ARTICLE]

Democratic State Ticket.

■ For Secretary ««ff State. to SAMUEL RALSTON .«f h-w-GuMy. ■ For Audio* of State. B K; JOHN W. MINOR, of Booue Couaity. I For Treasurer of State, |r HUGH DOUGHERTY. of Wells County, s For Attorney General. BFv JOHN G. M NUTT, of Vigu County. I For Clerk of. Scjfretne Court.. I • HENRY WARRUM. of Mark® County. [I For Superintetaetit Public Instruction. I W. B. SINCLAIR. of Starke (<««<- I, For State Statistician. J JAMES S. GUTHRIE, of Broan County. | For State <TeoiOgfet- * [ BDWARD BARRETT, of Hendricks County. ? For Judge* Supreme Court. 2d District, fMON ARD J. HACKNEY, of Shelby County. Third District. I JAMES MX'ABE. of Warren County. Fifth District. fUMOTHY E. HOWARD, of St. Josey* County. |For Judges of AppeiiateCourt. First District. EDWIN TAYLOR, of Vauderiairgh County. Second District , C. J. KOLLMEYER. of Rartbokuueu County. Third District. EDGAR A. BROWN, of Marion tounty. Fourth District ' WILLIAM S. DIVEN. of Madison County. Fifth District. ■ JOHANNES KOPELKE. of Lake County. E’ For Congress. JOHN ROSS, of Tipfaecanoe County. For Representative. DAVID H. YEOMAN, of Jasper County . ’ Prosecuting Attorney . noth Judicial District. IRA W. YEOMAN.

The County Ticket. For County Clerk, JOHN F. MAJOR of Carpenter Tp. For County Auditor. GEORGE O. STEMBEL. of Wheatfield Tp For County Treasurer, MARION I. ADAMS. of Mark* Tp For County Sheriff. WILLI AM C. HCSTt»N, of Milroy Tp. "Wi? County Surveyor. DAVID E.I GARKIttT. of Vaita. Tp. For-County Coroner. Mt. P. J. PWTHVLSJE. of Carpenter Tp. C<Hnfui«M,»uer la District. FRANK M. H&RsmtAX. of Walker Tp CotnmisMouer itx! District. LVCIVS STKOXG of Betroetaer.-

Open the books. Let there be light. Vote for your own interests once. ■ f Oar county government is rotten to the core. Open the books. Is it an honest board of commissioners that will give out such misleading statementsas those contained m the auditor's annual report?

The taxpayers of Jasper county have been bled for years in the personal interests of 'the Jasper county ring. Is it not time to give the ring a lesson. Let us have a new deal for count j- commissioners and county officers generally. The feeling throughout the county is strongly in favor of a change. Tell your neighbor that if he enjoys high taxes and wasteful extravagance in county administration to vote for its continuance, but if not to vote the democratic ticket.

It will take at least 35 yean to! pay for that one-hundred-and-eixty I five-thousandxlollar- court bouse .■ and we have no larger or better ■ building than other counties have erected for about one half this ram. Why is it so? 1 ' ITI 1 T"" " ’ - Still the Journal makes no reply to our charge (as shown by the Bureau of Statistics’ report) that the expenditures on account rs 6™

Yta BgMlkr totter ata rosea eceoemtcai caunayaunasuaßrnttotagwaaadhy the Jasper ceumty. Far yuan Has rtMsu by es the I naateateuvugaut *aMto( rings *hut eVer prey|uß agate alee* atektteg gaagte, the taratag gatathaattetete. There an times when a teag “stated by ttottetot” toss nta tor their awa tatensto. WatoMmtbattbtotoatea as throe 1 yuan ta Jtogar cnuatyDtfgbi Thues. The interests of the people of the county demand a change in county management. Vote as your conscience tells you and we will get this change. The expense of Commissioners’ court in Jasper county for the fiscal year ending May 31st 1898 was $2J215A0. At least the auditor's report says so. The writer will forfeit $25 if he cannot prove by the county records themselves the truth of every statement made by The Democrat in regard to county affairs. The Indianapolis Sentinel has been getting after the court house ringin Marion county, and as a result over $12.10) in fees illegally held by the county officers has been turned over to the county treasurer. The printing of the county’s financial statement in Jasper county is a farce, pure and simple. No true statement of affairs is • published at all. as conclusively shown bi The Democrat. Open the books.

The people well know that there is no democratic ring in Jasper county, but it will be useless to try and convince them that there is no republican ring—they have seen too much of its practical workings. and know better. The vile personal journalism of i Bro. Clarke and his statistican j,30 years in office) who sails under i various nom de plumes, is not a I new thing for the Journal man. . A few years ago, it will be i remembered, while publishing the . Pilot,' he burned his fingers quite badly while indulging in this favorite pastime of his. ============= . Bear in mind there is no law which allows clerks, judges and other members of election boards pay for two days work for their > services at an election. Save this extra pay this year for the taxl payers. It belongs to them and no | one has any right to give it away gratuitously, as has been done in Jasper county in the past.

Can any person give a plausible reason why Jasper county’s taxes should be 23| cents on the SIOO higher than Benton county; 22 cents higher than Lake county; 20 cents higher than Newton county, and 17 cents higher than Porter and White counties? It is time to open.up the books and where all this money raised from excessive taxation goes to.

-As Abraham Lincoln once said: You can fool all the people a part of the time, part of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. We believe a sufficient number of the people of Jasper county have at last got their eyes opened to the dangers they have been steadily drifting into for years, to rise in their might at the November electhmand take charge of county affairs few a while themselves. The ring must go.

It occurs to me that Congressman Crumpacker, in his oratorical campaign for re-election, must ever be in mortal dread, when applauding the McKinley administration, that some over audacious smart Aleck will break in on him with a query about his vote against the annexation of Hawaii. Mr. Crumpacker not only voted against annexation, but he went further, and delivered a Vesuvian philippic against it—charging that it was houeycomed withall sorts of obvious jobs, and full of rottenI • ' H .A’* .. Tk A WW

• We believe it is the custom in other counties for the auditor to make'oath to his annual report. This is not done in Jasper county. Why? How much more do the people know about the financial state of affairs in Jasper county after reading the reports of its officers than was known before? Open the books. (■ The ring officials of Jasper county have created a bonded debt nearly double the constitutional limit. Do you wish to continue this ring in power for four years more? The ring don’t like The Democrat’s “picture gallery.” We should think not, when we show that other counties erect equally as good court houses as Jasper’s for about one-half as much money. The Journal hints that we would not be allowed to examine county records when Auditor Murray was present. We have done so, Bro. Clark, and expect to do so again. Certainly the auditor’s office in Jasper county is still a public office? Such a rotten state of affairs as prevails in the management of county finances in Jasper county is practically without a parallel. Let the books be opened up and see how much more mismanagement will be revealed. The taxpayers have a right to know.

There is no ring in Jasper county. Such a thing as a ring in Jasper county republican politics does not and cannot exist.- — Republican. Tell this to the birds, Bro. Marshall, no one else will believe it. The writer himself knew it was false when he wrote it. That “temporary loan” of $4,000 was made for thirty days. The items of 8320 and $368, so Auditor Murray informed us, were for interest on this same identical loan. Why, if the county had so much on hand in the county fund, as claimed by the Journal, as to reduce the tax levy, has not this thirty day loan been i>aid? The thirty days have grown into into months and the months into years, but we are still paying interest upon it. The Journal thinks our reason for taking another party with us when we examine the records in the auditor’s office is because we fear personal violence at the hands of the auditor. Not at all,' Bro. Clarke, we simply want a witness when examining county records, that we may be prepared for any job that might be put up on us, Was it to be done over again we have not the least doubt but the cutting out of those pages would be laid at our own door.

The Democrat has effectually exploded Mr. Halleck’s court house yard campaign thunder scheme by showing conclusively that the county paid every dollar’s expense the contractors were put to in tearing up the walks and coping and relaying them, and that Mr. Halleck, instead of saving for the county, actually made the people pey some SBOO to SI,OOO for something that amounted to nothing at all, but which he expected would help him greatly in his campaign for re-election. In took in round numbers $2,500 above everything raised upon the farm and everything sold therefrom to maintain the poor farm in Jasper county for the year ending May 31, 1897. Although the average number of inmates wae less than this, we will place them at fifteen, and we find that it cost the county about $3.25 in actual cash per week for each inmate over and above all receipts and everything that was raised upon the farm. Include the cash W ceipts for the year ($911.75) and it cost about $4.50 per week for maintenance for these inmates (supposing the number to be sis-

Burned on the farm of its own production. Is it not time to open the books? It has probably never occurred to Bro. Clark that perhaps his readers might be more interested in hearing something about county affairs than they are in the vile billingsgate of himself and statistician (30 years in office) directed at The Democrat editor. Tell your readers, Bro Clark, why all those changes were necessary in the plans and specifications of the new court house; about that trip of the Commissioners to Milwaukee to buy the clock; how Halleck used the court house yard matter for campaign thunder in his race for re-election; what become of the bond in the Keener gravel road, and of Mr. Halleck’s rumored connection with said contract; why those pages were cut from the commissioners’ record; all about that $4,000 loan; why, under the present management of the auditor’s office, the county now pays 25 cents for all affidavits of claims against it, and many other things of interest to the taxpayers. After the election, when people have time to read such things, you can publish in pamphlet form, or might run as a continued story, the personal history of The Democrat man. BEWARE of the man who is always TRYING TO DEFEND THE SCOUNDRELS WHO ARE FATTENING ON PUBLIC PLUNDER. A CLOSE INSPECTION WILL GENERALLY REVEAL THE FACT THAT THEY ARE SHARING IN THE BOOTY.-Hebron News.

In the Journal of -Sept. Bth, we find that the Journal’s statistician (30 years in office) had made another frantic search of the records and discovered that the receipts from the poor farm for the year ending May 31, 1898, were actually $136.72 more than the cost of maintenance, which was given in the auditor’s annual report at $3,581.45. The Journal will pardon us for doubting the truth of this statement, but we have seen to -many false reports of the management and condition of county affairs that we have naturally grown a little suspicious, therefore we wrote to the Bureau of Statistics, where the auditor is supposed to file a true statement of such matters, and received the following reply: Indianapolis, Oct. 10, ’9B F. hJ. Babcock, Rensselaer, Ind. Dear Sir: —In reply to yours of the Bth, will say that the receipts of the Jasper county poor farm for the last fiscal year were $2,605.28; expenditures for same period, $3,508.18. Very Truly Yours, J. W. Egners, Deputy Chief. Flease note that the expenditures as published in the auditor’s report were $3,581.45, while his report to the Bureau of Statistics (as shown above) was $73.27 less than the statement given out to the taxpayers. Which report is correct, and will the Journal have anything more to say about a “surplus” for 1898?