Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1900 — Page 4 Advertisements Column 2 [ADVERTISEMENT]

The democratic national convention will be held at Kansas City, July 4th. Late reports from the South African war are not of a nature to create much joy among Americans. Gen. Cronje with 10,000 Boer soldiers is said to be almost completely surrounded by a much larger force of English under Lord Roberts and is fighting desperately. For four or five days the fight has been going on, and if English reports are to be relied upon the brave Boer general and his devoted band of heroic fighters must soon surrender. From all over the county come the most encouraging reports from the democratic precinct conventions held last Saturday. The members of the party are much enthused over the prospects for democratic success, both local and national, in the coming campaign, and propose to use every honorable means to bring about such success. Good men were selected on the precinct committees and to the county convention, which will probably be held sometime in May or the early part of June. At Wheatfield the convention set the day for holding their township convention on Saturday, March 24. The names of the members of the newly elected precinct committees and the delegates to the county convention will be published by The Democrat next week if space will permit. Some New York millionaires, for a little thing like five million dollars, will let the United States build the Nicarauga canal. Is this a government by the trusts? Each United States Senator now has four employes at his service and there is no telling how soon they will decide they need another. It costs the people twice as much to run the senate as it does a representative per capita. Pages are paid $1,440 a year, while the chaplain does the praying for S9OO. And the poor man is blind, besides. Laborers get a thousand a year, and tenders of the elevators pocket a hundred per month. No wonder the revenue stamps have to be continued.—Fowler Leader (rep.) And the Leader wishes to continue this thing by keeping in power the plutocratic party, the party of trusts, combines and extravagance.

The editor of the Official Apologist is “forninst” the Dutch, and in this connection he but voices the sentiment of the administration people. For fear of offending the Keener tp., Hollanders and other foreigners who heartily sympathize with the Boers in their struggle for freedom in South Africa, the Apologist editor is generally quite guarded in his public utterances, but occasionally he lets drop a few words calculated to show the faithful on which side of the fence McKinley, Hanna & Co., want them to line up. The Boer sympathizers should not forget when election day comes around that the Official Apologist in this county and republican leaders all over the country detest all sympathy for the South African patriots, and that a republican consul says that a secret alliance has been made by a republican administration with that bloody tyrant, England.

Considering the amount of assessments of the other newspaper plants of Jasper county, as given in for taxation by their respective editors, The Democrat pays about twice as much taxes as any printing office in the entire county. In Rensselaer it is a patron of the the city light plant and during thg twenty months of the present management it has paid and is still paying one dollar per month for light service. This is in addition to its regular city taxes and is paid in actual cash—-not political pap. It has never asked for or received one penny’s worth of advertising or job printing from the city. As an actual taxpayer The Democrat stands well up to the head of Jasper county newspapers. In addition to this The Democrat pays Uncle Sam in postage and for revenue stamps, from $4,00 to $6.00 per month; the American Express Co., about $3 per month; for labor, which is distributed by its employes among Rensselaer tradesman, about SSO per month; to the farmers in the surrounding country, about $75 per year for. fuel; to Rensselaer landlords in rents, $225 per year, and to Rensselaer tradesmen for family supplies, several hundred dollars each year. It pays the cash for all this, and dosen’t owe “the butcher or the baker” one penny. We guess The Democrat is doing its share all the way along the line in paying taxes and in assisting in keeping the wheels of business moving in Rensselaer.