Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1903 — MONEY TO LOAN. [ARTICLE]

MONEY TO LOAN.

Will Reed Smoot be emooted or will he not be smote? It is said that our Governor Durbin is an avowed candidate for vice-president. During October and the first week of November there were fifty-five suicides in Chicago. The members of the Indiana Democratic and Indiana Republican Editorial associations, with their wives, will be the guests of the Hon. Thos. Taggart at French Lick {Springs [Hotel, Wednesday and Thursday, Dec. 2 and 3.

One of the greatest street car strikes in the history of Chicago, - involving all of the twenty-one linee of street railway of that city is now on. The strike is the result of the street car companies refusing to employ none but Union labor. The strike promises to be a nasty one. and many lives will probably be sacrificed ere it is settled. We notice that B. J. Gifford is advertising ‘‘farms to rent” in •Jasper county, and yet the courts have decided that a man who “rents” one of B. J’s. farms and signs' his long-winded, doubleaction, iron-clad farm _ “lease’’ is not a renter, aad the condition of laudlord and tenant does not exist between them. Many of the “tenants’’ have been trying to .figure out just what they are, but it is still an open question. Cotton mill employes -at Fall River, Mass , have, been notified that a general reduction of 10 per cent in wages will go into effect Nov. 23. Jt is said that other cotton mills throughout the east will follow the example set by the Fall River manufacturers and the redaction in wages will be general. The United States Steel corporation have also notified its employes that a general reduction of wages equal to a little more than 10 per cent will be made. This latter redaction will aggregate $15,000,000 annoally. Both redactions are alleged to be necessary on account of dullness of trade. ►

It is qoite evident that TaxFerret Workman operated in a more equitable manner in Tippecanoe county than here, or that the Lafayette Demoorat is unfamiliar with bis methods, judging from an editorial in that paper in which newspapers that have criticised the tax-ferrets and their work are censured for having done so. We know nothing of Mr. Workman’s “record” in other counties, but we do know something of his record here, and that it was open to criticism is well known to every person familiar with”his work. Exclusive of the question of the policy of employing ferrets to hunt up delinquents or tax-dodg-ers, which can and should be done by the county assessor, it seems to us that a man who is engaged in picking flaws in the honesty of others should first fumigate his own clothing, and according to a verdict rendered in the Owen circuit court a few months ago, Mr. Workman himself was found guilty of having cheated the taxpayers of his county out of several hundred dollars in fees collected while auditor of that county and which he had evidently forgotten to turn into

the county treasury as the law requires. Another thing that made Jasper county people lose confidence in Mr. Workman’s “investigation” here was his relentlessly pursuing the widows and orphans, the aged and infirm, and thus far allowing all the “big fish”—of whose alleged crookeduess he made considerable noise—go scot free. To be sure he did get after Judge Thompson, to assist his friend “Honest Abe” to another three years’ lease as ruler of Jasper county, but Thompson proved to the satisfaction of one of the ablest and most honorable jurists in Indiana —Ex-Supreme Judge Timothy E. Howard—that he didn't owe a penny of omitted taxes. And as for the other alleged high-roller dodgers, Workman never made so much a feint to get after them, so far as the public knows. The Democrat thinks that if tax-ferrets or experts are employed in any public capacity, the investigation should be thorough and absolutely impartial. Also, that the investigation, paid for by the tax-payers of all political affiliations, should be strictly nonpartisan. When Mr. Workman stooped to the political trickery of placing the alleged omitted tax against Judge Thompson on the tax duplicate just on the eve of an election, simply to boost bis friend Halleck back in office, be

did something that should cause the people of a community to look with snspicion on him and his methods. Edward J.' Fogarty, mayor of South Bend, has announced his candidacy for the democratic nomination for governor.

. Oxford Tribune: Those who are getting their per centum on the tax ferret “graft” are not making qny complaints against the system. Has Benton oonnty realized SIOO ont of all the razzooing and bullyragging it bss subjected its citizens to? In our opinion the whole thing is an egregious blunder, unnecessary, uncalled for and unjust. Annul the contract with the tax ferrets. It is an unholy alliance.

The taxpayers of Jasper county should bear in mind that with an increase in taxable valuation in the state this year of $118,625,402 the republican state taxing officers increased the levy from 29§ cents to 30$. And this was done with no extraordinary call for more money. In our own county, bear in mind also, with an increase in taxable property of $3.000,000 in round numbers, the republican county council made no reduction whatever in the levy over last year. Then, getting down to Rensselaer, with a largely increased valuation, the levy is increased 39 cents by the profligate city council, and, we are told, there is now outstanding about $2,500 in protested city orders. Here is food for thought, Mr. Taxpayer.

Private funds to loan on farms and city property at. a low rate of interest, also money to loan on bankable notes and second mortgage. A complete set of abetract books. James BL. Chapman. Mukeever's Bank Building, Rensoobter, Ind. For fine commercial job printing come to The Democrat office.