Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1900 — Shelby County's Lessor. [ARTICLE]

Shelby County's Lessor.

The exposure of th’e rotten condition of Shelby county affairs serves to emphasize the necessity for reform in the conduct of county business. The extravagance practiced there in the matterof furnishing the county with printing and stationery has been almost beyond description. The present county auditor—who is sought to be mandated by the local Democratic paper for refusing to pay a printing bill of sl,loo— the county has had supplies enough furnished to last a century at ten times their actual value, and that the present bills are fraudulent and illegal. It is just such exposures as this, that serve to show the great need of some check upon the management of county affairs. They also offer a clew to the reason why so many of the township trustees are so bitterly opposed to the supervision of the township councils. They cannot conspire with the sellers of school and township supplies to plunder the tax payers, as they formerly could, thus limiting their incomes to their per diem.—lndianapolis Press (ind.)

Yes. we expect things are pretty rotten down in Shelby county—in fact this is generally admitted by both democratic and republican papers. So rotten, in fact, have they become that the democrats are now engaged in unearthing tfie rottenness. Shelby county has been “reliably democratic” for 10, these many years, and a sleek, well fed, unprincipled democratic court house ring has grown up there, such as the Press remarks, “has been almost beyond description.” It is to the credit of the democrats of Shelby county that they are earnestly endeavoring to break up this ring and bring about an honest county government. But, speaking about rottenness in county government, The Democrat can point to a county which has been “reliably republican” for many years that can give Shelby cards and spades on rottenness, and the figures we here present in proof of this statement are taken from the official reports issued by the republican state officials at Indianapolis, These reports are before us as we pen this article, and we will add that any taxpayer who doubts the statements made can call at The Democrat office and satisfy himself as to their reliability, in fact we would be pleased to show him the reports and let him make other comparisons in the official management of the two counties. So reliable are these figures that even the official Apologist or its editor’s relative by marriage, he of the “abiding faith” in the integrity of our past, present and future official management the Remington Press “editor”—dare not dispute them.

The county we refer to is our own “reliably republican” county of Jasper, where the five newspapers —owned body and soul by the court house ring—tell you everything is lovely and the goose hangeth high. The Press refers to stationery, so we will herein make comparison only in this one item, but nearly the same showing is made in all departments: The reports from which we take these figures gives the population of Jasper county at 16,609, and Shelby county at 32,463. or nearly twice as large as Jasper. This estimate is based on the vote of 1898. As every intelligent man knows, the needs of a county for books and stationery are in porportion to her population, thus Shelby should require about twice the amount of Jasper. Let us see how the expenditures for this purpose compare in the two counties: For the fiscal year ending May 31. 1896, Jasper county expended for books and stationery the sum of $2,099.00 Shelby county only 1,965.00

Excess exp’ts? .in Jasper 134.00 For the fiscal year ending May 31,1807, Jasper county expended for books and stationery the sum 0f...., $2,520.01 Shelby county only 2,381.03

Excess exp’ts in Jasper 138.98 For the fiscal year ending May 31, 1898, Jasper county expended for books and stationery the sum 0f.... $2,882.08 Shelby county only 2,265.22

Excess exp’ts in Jasper 616.86 The total excess of expenditures for this one item in Jasper county for the above three years is $889.84. “The present auditor of Shelby county says the .county has had supplies enough furnished to last a century at ten times their actual value.” If so, Shelby county requiring twice the amount of supplies of this nature as Jasper, we should have supplies enough to lasts little more than two centuries! There seem*, hdwevei, to be, this difference e&tfonery

affairs of the two counties —Shelby county actually got her supplies, even though she did pay ten times their value, while with Jasper county if the supplies were furnished, they are not in evidence. Yes, Shelby county is undoubtedly very rotten officially, but—*