Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1903 — Keep EXPENSES DOWN. [ARTICLE]

Keep EXPENSES DOWN.

‘"— ’ otry” are The “Captain* of influx busily engaged in making ft "re- • -» ..pel" in wbIPP adjustment u. ..- 0 the employe gets decidedly the worst end of the deal.

We are accustomed to think that the Spanish bull fight is largely responsible for the defects of the Spanish character, because for generations it has been making the people familiar with cruelty and indifferent to suffering. What is likely to be the result of a few generations of American College football?—Chicago American. Court item in Benton Review: All the cases against the taxpayers who refused to hunt up their bank books for 20 years to show the balances they had on April Ist were dismissed. This coincides with the statement made by Jasper county papers, that when the tax payer wants to fight the tax ferret don’t. Newton county seems to have been having an epidemic of business failures lately. Starting with the failure of Jesse J. Fry, the Rose Lawn banker, a Kentland merchant soon after went under. Then Thos. Barnette, a Goodland contractor left town and creditors and has since made an assignment, and then came the failure of W. D. Foresman, the Foresman grain dealer and merchant. Really, “Old Prosperity” is giving Newton a back-handed swipe these days.

A Chicago daily a few days ago contained a list of seventeen football fatalities thus far this season, and added: “If it was possible to secure the entire number of deaths from this-jaational fall sport the the total probably would far exceed this number.” Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other players were seriously injured, many of whom will no doubt yet die as a result thereof. Of the .injured not one in a hundred are ever reported in the papers. In fact studied efforts seem to be made to keep these accidents from the public prints. As an example, the recent game at Remington where several Lafayette players were badly used up and one had his leg broken, a mere mention of the latter injury was about all the mention that was made, and that in the local prees. In the recent Morocco-Goodland game, one of the Morocco players got a leg broken, according to the Brook Reporter, yet we saw no mention of the accident in either the Goodland or Morocco papers. Were a complete season’s list of all the deaths and serious accidents, such as broken arms, legs, ribs, noses, collar bones, etc., obtainable, the list would be so appalling that it would bring the parents of the young men who indulge in this deadly sport to a foil realisation of what it means, and a universal demand would be made for its abolishment from our high schools and colleges. '

Clncldattl Enquirer; Old-fashioned principles in public affairs are the best ones to * stand by. Economy in government used to be a prime der mand. Now it is sneered at. Those who insist that Federal taxation should be limited to the 1 real public needs, and that rigid economy should be practiced, are told that the Government is growing and that expenses are bound to increase. The wealth in the Treasury is pointed to as a justification for generosity, and this

“generosity” always moans extravagance, and frequently rascality. Public men and newspaper writers whose disposition it is to be lavish with “other peoples money” revert 'to the “howl” about the work of the BillionDollar Congress a few years ago, and “point with pride” to the fact that the appropriations of each Congress are largely in excess of a billion dollars, with no special wonder. “The Government is growing with the country,” they say. Well, it should not. It

should require but little more machinery and expense to run the "eminent now that it did half aieutury ftg9;' The growth is fr * offices

the greed ror u*v.. higher salaries and greater political patronage. The scope of the Federal Government is but little more than it was at the beginning. It has simply been made prodigiously and unnecessarily expensive.

The plea that the revenues are abundant, that the Government is rich, and that the Federal establishment should live in a style appiopriate to its means, is an argument not unlike that of the spendthrift, loafer and affluent drone in society. Economy is a sufficient argument against this spirit of extravagance; but it is not the greatest one. Federal taxation ia insidious, It does not appear on the books, as state taxation does, but it is nevertheless searching in its practical application. Paying

taxes by indirection is burdensome enough, but the greatest danger of heavy Federal revenues and a munificient Federal establishment is in the instillment of a false idea of the scope and function of the National Government. The Governments which are nearest the people—out of which they get the most for the taxes they pay—are those of the states. We should take pride in the simplicity, rather than in the size and glitter, of the Federal Government. The vastly increased expenditures provided for by Congress are more largely for embellishment than for utility. The Federal Government ought to be a slowgrowing institution. Simplicity is tbe thing. The old motto is the best: The Government is best which governs the least. The cost and brilliancy of the Washington establishment are leading too many people into the mistake that there is a great central power, and that the states of the Union are petty provinces.

There may be fortes of “graft” that have not been sprang on the people of Benton county, but it will require a genius to find one that will beat the tax ferret deal. —Oxford Tribune, (rep.) Warden W. Stevens, a prominent farmer of near Salem, Washington county, is being talked of for the democratic nomination for governor. There will be no dearth of good timber for nomination to all the state offices next year.

The street car strike at Chicago is settled. We presume both sides claim a victory, but it is noticeable in the terms of settlement the railway company will employ whom it pleases, whether the employe bears the union label or not. This is right. The labor unions are fast losing ground in their exborbitant and arrogant demands. Public sympathy is,seldom with them now. A. B. Crampton, editor of the Carroll County Citizen, was before Judge Anderson at Indianapolis

last Friday, charged with publishing improper matter and using tk<e /nails for unlawful purposes ws£» fined S2OO. Some time Mpo OfsiggtQn wrote, as a joke, an th ® *«dding of Editor accouu., . 11 Ricketts of the Delphi Journal IQ a manner that attracted the atten* tion of the authorities. Legal proceedings were instituted, with the above result. We wonder what would have happened to “Hinky Dink” Robertson, late of the lamented Wheatfield Telephone, if his lapses of propriety had been called to the attention of the postal authorities?