Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1898 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

A WORD TO TAXPAYERS. For some months The Democrat has been urging upon the taxpayers qf this county the importance of reducing public expenditures. County government has been costing too much. Taxes have been and are now too high. The Democrat has contended and now contends that too much money is being collected and expended in this county for public purposes. The Democrat contends that the taxpayers have not got value received for the money they have been compelled to pay into the county treasury. This matter can not go on indefinitely. It should go no further. Taxpayers in sheer self-defense must bring about this much needed reform. How can this be done? Can it be done by re-electing the present incumbents or the candidates nominated by the republican ring to fill their places? What reason have you to hope for any retrenchment from such men as A. Halleck or 8. A. Dowell? Halleck, the terror of tax-dodgem, yet the worst offender of the lot! Halleck, who when driven to put his telephone lines on the tax duplicate, after having owned and operated them for three yearn, “omitted" to place them on the duplicate or pay taxes on them for the first three or four yearn they were in use.

You, as taxpayers, have felt these grevious burdens and have borne them for yean. You are awan of the difficulty you have experienced year after year to meet these ever-growing demands on your purse. You are aware of the self-denial you have been compelled to practice to lift this grevious burden from your property. Yet all to what purpose? The appetites of these tax-eaten have all been sharpened. Their ability to consume your hard-earned substance incnased in the same ntio that this burden crushes you. You now have an opportunity to right some of these wrongs. What is gone can not be recovered, but the future can be made safe. County expenditures can be reduced enormously without harm to the public interests. The democratic candidates are pledged to do this. They an good, safe, energetic, cautious business men. As township trustees they wen economical, prudent and saving of publio money. No scandal ever attached to their conduct as public servants. The same can be said of all the candidates on the democratic oounty ticket. Elect them all and you will crush out —utterly annihilate—one of the most extravagant, and extortionate court house rings that has ever disgraced the face of the earth.

The salary of the auditor in Jasper county is $1,500 per year, and the fee and salary law says emphatically that this sum shall be his sole compensation. Yet in the face of this we are informed that over $2,600 per year is extracted from the office. The statistician (30 years in office) is onto all the “grafts,” and republican success next Tuesday means his continued retention and fattening at the public crib.* The Michigan City News, (Republican) gets off the following chunk of political wisdom which we commend to the voters of Jasper county: “It used to be that the voter who refused to vote for every candidate on his party ticket was called “weak kneed” and a man who would not uphold his party principles. But that is no longer necessarily the case. If a man was buying hogsior the market he would refuse all which had the scurvy, and scurvy runs deeper in some politicians than it does inhogs."^