Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1898 — OUR INDEBTEDNESS Compared With Adjoining Counties. [ARTICLE]

OUR INDEBTEDNESS Compared With Adjoining Counties.

Amount. Per Capita Jasper $153,500.00 $9-33 Starke 76,361.44 6.61 White 67,819.64 2.06 Pulaski 56,000.37 3.07 P0rter....... 13,939.11 .63 Lake 8,000.00 .21 Benton none. none. Newton none. none. We would respectfully remind the Journal that county officials of twenty years ago and even those before the civil war are not on trial at this time, and their acts, good, bad, or indifferent, have no bearing in the present battle for a more honest and economical county government. ■ As many prominent republicans have remarked, the silver question nor the war question have nothing to do with the political situation in Jasper county. Every taxpayer should be interested in a more economical administration of local affairs and in the defeat of the ring which has brought about the deplorable state of affairs now confronting the people of this county.

We see that the Journal is attempting to make a little campaign thunder out of the fact that B. J. Gifford paid §7,210 in gold into court this week. Of course it never occurred to the narrow minded Journal scribe that Mr. Gifford made his tender in gold coin, simply because it is the only kind of money that is a full legal tender for all purpose. Mr. Gifford knew what he was doing.

The “money power” would probably make a handsome profit out of both gold and silver. It would soon own all the silver and all the silver mines in the world and then let us have just such money and just so much of it, as would best suit its own purposes and most satisfy its greed.—Rensselaer Republican. Read the above again and ponder it carefully. It is a fair sample of the unanswerable logic that makes Jasper county so solidly republican. Of course it never entered Bro. Marshall’s head that the “money power” may even now be controlling all the gold and all the gold mines in just this manner.— White County Democrat. The Democrat wishes it distinctly understood that it has had no personal animous against Auditor Murray, that it has made no l>ersonal attack upon him in any I way, and the fact that our disclosures of rottenness in the management of county affairs mentions the auditor and the auditor’s office in an official way, and not in a personal way. The official records of the county affairs are kept by the. auditor and in his office, and he is the custodian of such records. Auditor Murray has become much incensed at our disclosures and has shown his displeasure and allowed it to be done by the Journal’s statistician (30 years in office) in various personal ways. The efforts made to muzzle us or drive us out of business are not new to this gang, but we shall continue to show up the rottenness in the management of county affairs in spite of their buldozing tactics.