Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1899 — Mexican Prosperity. [ARTICLE]

Mexican Prosperity.

Beware of the men who ate alwsy* tryint to defend the scoundrels who are fattening on public plunder. A close inspection will generally reveal the tact that they are sharing In the booty.—Hebron News.

The Delphi Times strikes the nail square on the head when it says, “No man who supported the Chicago platform in 1896 is clamoring for its modification in 1900.

As a result of a sixty day session, the grand jury of Hancock county has returned 91 indictments /igainst former county officers. The investigation covers a period of eight or ten years and reveals a state of dishonesty seldom found in any county. The emigration of ex-officials has already commenced. —Monon News.

As a dog to its vomit and a sow

to her wallow, so the Sewer man very naturally returns to his mouthings. And this time its to be the club that is to do the work. But of one thing rest assured, the the lecherous, cowardly brute who “edits” the Sewer, will use no club unless it be on some defenseless woman. It requires more courage than this cur possesses to look square into the face of a man.

People from all parts of the county have been coming in this week to pay their taxes, and the howl that they are excessive seems to be confined to no particular class. The Democrat knows of no one being to blame for this except the people themselves. If they are willing to be robbed in high taxes by an extravagant county government, they should not kick when it comes time to pay the same.

The county records show that from Nov. 30, 1897. to Dec. 16, 1898, J. E. Alter, ex-county surveyor, filed bills in his own name in the commissioners' court of Jasper county, amounting to $1,162.00, and that these bills were “cut” by the commissioners $165.15. The Apologist should urge .the commissioners refund Mr. Alter this sum. The Democrat believes every county officer having an honest bill against the county should be paid in full.

Indianapolis Sentinel: The Quay jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and yet there was piobably not a man on the jury who was not convinced in his own mind that Quay was guilty. There is probably not a man in the United Btates of ordinary common sense, who has paid any attention to the case, who does believe that Quay was in a conspiracy with the efficers of the People’s bank and others to use the funds of the state of Pennsylvania for speculation, and that they did use the state funds. Possibly some element of the charge was not fully proven by lawful evidence, as claimed by the defense, but nobody believes that the dead banker made those entries in his books for amusement. He never expected them to be exposed to the public, but his entries come as voices from another world branding Matthew Stanley Quay a criminal, no matter whet juriee may say. Thta t r 4kAMR9 Ux i - .

The only way the people of Jasper county can hope to have • fair show and enforce the laws on the statutes for their protection is to organise a strong taxpayers’ league. Other counties in the state have dime this and good results have followed from snch organisation. The necessity for something of the kind is greater here than in any county in the state.

We aee from a dispatch in an exchange that a county in a neighboring state has got enough of the wolf aoalp bounty business and has abolished the same. Scalps were becoming too plentiful, and in one week over 1600 was paid out in bounties, while during the past % years the county had paid out over SIO,OOO for the same thing. Will Jasper county profit from the experience of other counties in this wolf scalp business?

The appellate court rendered a decision on a landlord’s lein case from Clinton county which will be of interest to every business man who has occasion to purchase produce raised upon leased premises. “Under Sec. 5,224, R. 8. 1881,” the court says, “a landlord has a lein on a share of the crop raised on leased premises, not exceeding half thereof, for the payment of the rent, whether it is to be paid by a part of the crop or in cash. A purchaser of produce raised on leased premises is bound to take notice of the landlord’s lein even without actual notice, and if the tenant sells the landlord’s share to one who converts it to his own use and fails to pay the rent, both he and the purchaser are liable to the landlord for conversion.”

It is but fitting for the asinine individual who conducts the ribald sheet commonly known as the Court House Sewer, to rush to the defense of thievery. There is a secret bond which seems to unite people who are tarred with the same stick, and when you strike one you strike all. The “editor” of the Sewer it will be remembered, once had charge of the now defunct Pilot, and was forced by the stockholders of that paper to get out when it was learned that the Pilot office had been turned into an assignation house. The “editor” was a man of family at that time, too. He also signed a little “statement” for the Apologist editor and a few others acknowledging that he was a vile prevaricator and promised to leave town. Strange, as it may appear quite a little of the Pilot’s “dough” stuck to his fingers when he left. A fine specimen this, to sit in judgement on the moral character of others! Encomiums from such a source, however, only strengthens the general opinion that thieves do sometimes break into office.

After reading the latest “outrage” in the South, let the reader ponder over the following extract from a letter of Herbert Rogers of Wolcott, a soldier boy, to his parents at that place, dated Manila, P. 1., Feb. 25. “We start out the same as we do when we go rabbit hunting, and throw out skirmish lines at the edge of town, and then kill everything that can be Been. It is terrible the way the negroes are killed, when they beg so for their lives, but it does no good; they get it just the same, and that is what gets me. I can shoot as hard as anyone when me are in a fight, but when it comes to killing a man that has no weapon to defend himself with, I can’t stand it The other day when our boys went out, they killed women and children and anything they could. I tell you ma, that army life is terrible, and I can barely stand it, to see the slaughtering of—well I can’t hardly aay human lives—but I guess God placed them on earth the same as He did ns, and I suppose that they are living for the future just the same as we are.” The letter from which the above is copied was published in the Wolcott Enterprise, and we understand that young Rogers is an exemplary young man and his statements above are entitled to credence, humiliating as it most be to our boasted civilisation and humanity.

it is doubtful that the world ever presented two such contrasting pictures of the results of economic policies as are now presented by the gold and silver standard nations. The strongest of the gold standard nations—the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany—with every advantage of education, military power, manufacturing skill and everything naturally conducing to make people prosperous, are all creeping along under conditions of hardship,, watching at svery tom for some indication of returning “prosperity,” trying experiments in tariffs and bounties to stimulate their industries, and their industrial leaders combining and demanding special privileges on the plea that they must reduce expenses and increase profits to live. Coming ddwn a step in the scale we find Spain, Italy and Greece practically bankrupt Russia, the only rival of the United States in natural resources, has advanoed in industrial depression and poverty until her people are today starving to death by hundreds. Turkey is financially ruined and survives only by tolerance, while Egypt is practiforeclosed upon for debt. One more step down and we find Argentina, Brazil and Chili, hopeless failures in their efforts to reach a gold standard, fastened in the quagmire of depreciated paper currency. The young, giant, Japan, so full of promise but a few months back, has reversed all her conditions since adopting the gold standard and now suffers both industrial depression and embarrassment of her national finances. India, the wealthiest and most productive of colonies, is reduced to such straits that all classes are clamoring for the restoration of silver, and her people, enfeebled by starvation resulting from gold standard conditions, are now being swept away by thousands by the bubonic plague, which commonly follows the trail of famine.

What a pleasure to turn from such pictures of high civilization to poor old, pig-headed, idiotic Mexico and note how it persists in being prosperous beyond measure in spite of its dishonest and anarchistic money standard. The government finances are in splenid condition. Bradstreet’s current number says of them: The prevailing: conditions were reflected in a surplus of revenue over expenditure in the last fiscal year. After meeting all the ordinary demands on the administration and paying out of the ordinary income certain extraordinary expenditures authorized during the year, amounting to over $500,000, toe department of finance recorded a surplus of nearly $1,000,000. For the presert fiscal year the outlook is satisfactory, for during toe first half of the year, that is, in the month* from July to December, 1888, the cash revenue from normal sources exceeded $38,000,000, or $3,500,000 more than the amount collect ed in the corresponding period of the preceding year.^ Rut this is not all. Mexican securities are going up, even in the most pronounced gold standard quarters, and the recent admission and favorable reception accorded in the markets of Holland, Belgium, Germany and Fiance to certain securities of the republic, which on account of their being payable ip silver, and not being protected by special guarantees, had not hitherto been so readily marketable as the others, are regarded as proofs of the increasing credit Of the Mexican funds abroad.” Remarkable, isn’t it? But the prosperity is not merely governmental. Even the farmers are prosperous in Mexico, for Bradstreet’s says:

It appears from Information furnished by the state governments to the department of encouragement that the value of agricultural products raised in the year 1897 was $261,600000 in round numbers, or an increase of $86,600,000 over the value of the like products in the preceding year. The exports of agricultural products in the first seven months of the present fiscal year were valued at $31,156,000, an increase of $6,099,000 over the value of v the like exports in the corresponding period of the fiscal year preceeding. Notable progress is also being achieved by the manufacturing industry. An indication of this is found in the number of concessions granted for the utilization for motive power purposes of water courses subject to federal jurisdiction, which have led to the establishment Of laiige factories. Coupled with this feature must be mentioned the increased importations of nu cbinery and exportations 'at manufactured products. The value Of the machinery imported during the first seven months of the current fiscal year was $4,141,000. which exceeded by $680,C00 the value of the imports' tions of machinery in the Corresponding period of the fiscal year 1897-98, On the other hand, the exportations of ;manu factored products in the first seven months of the current fiscal year exceeded-t hose" foe jttae corresponding period of the fiscal year preceding by over $600,000. * ■ . : 'js » ' 1 And everything else is moving along in like manner. Railroads and telegraph lines are being built in all directions. Education is being diffused through a splendid system of public schools. Individual freedom is so oOmplete that the civilised Indians of the United States are leaving Indian territory in droves and making homes an Mexico. Foreign capital is coming from gold standard countries in ali directions to seek profitable

investment under the dishonest standard. And yet there are people who see all these things and still imagine that J. Laurence Laughlin and Lyman T. Gage are great financial lights!—lndianapolis Sentinel.