Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 May 1904 — A FREE GRAB. [ARTICLE]

A FREE GRAB.

And son-in-law Rinehart is au ex-chairman of the Jasper county republican central committee, too. Will anyone now take issue with The Democrat in its oft-repeated statement that republican politics in Jasper county is rotten to the core? By the decision of the supreme court last week 1 in declaring the republican apportionment law of 1908 invalid, the election this fall for legislative offices will be under the apportionment of 1897. It is reported that Jesse E. Wilson of Rensselaer will not be a candidate for re-election as joint-representa-tive, bnt will seek the nomination for senator instead. A fair example of what fast horses lead to is found in the overdraft of $25,556 of the Rensselaer Stock Farm, an institution established and conducted for the breeding, training and handling of track horses. No doubt each of the partners spent thousands of dollars additional in going about the country and attending races in which their horses were entered. Tom Taggart’s personal organ, the Indianapolis Sentinel, says: “As concerns a candidate for the Presidency Indiana has expressed a choice, and by that choice will abide.” Wrong. The Taggarts, the Sims’s, the Murdocks, and their crowd of pie-hunters, through slick political maneuvers and rank disfranchisement, so manipulated the state convention that the piehunters declared for Parker, and bucbed and gagged the opposition. But the “reorganizers” have not taken into account that four-fifths of the Democratts of Indiana don’t want Parker nor any other Wall street candidate. It need not be Hearst, but it must nbt be a democrat of the Cleveland-Belmont-Hill-Taggart crowd. Should these fellows again succeed in throttling the will of the people at the St. Louis convention, thousands of democrats in Indiana will refuse to be led by the nose, and will remain away from the polls. And what is true of Indiana is also trnelof many other states. It is one thing to contract Indiana to the Wall street gang, but quite another thing to deljlyer the goods when all the people have a voice in confirming or repudiating the sale.

A few words regarding the McCoy bank failure: The schedules thus far filed show that the McCoys—A. McCoy and Tom —helped themselves quite freely money deposited therein by their customers. In other words, the people deposited their money in the McCoy bank and the McCoys checked it out for them, and some O’ of it was parceled out to their political friends. Considerable of this money was no doubt used to fight the democrats, and some of it belonged to democrats too. Thus democrats placed funds in the bank to be used against themselves, if this view is correct. The republican central committee is overdrawn $169.16; The republican postmaster is overdrawn $1,865.43; The republican sheriff is overdrawn $717.60; The republican county treasurer (who is also owing the bank a whole lot in personal notes) is overdrawn on his personal account $1,202.55; A. McCoy, who for the past twenty or thirty years has-been going about over the county telling the people that the democrats were d rascals and ought not to be trusted, is overdrawn $86,594.66 on his personal account and owes the bank notes for several thousand additional, besides other partnership aocounts in which he was interested are overdrawn for about $20,000 more; T. J. McCoy, the chairman of the Tenth congressional republican committee and a member of Gov. Durbin’s staff (Col. McCoy, Bro. Marshall used to call him in his days of prosperity) and who has dictated affairs political in this county for years, with the assistance of his father, is overdrawn the modest sum of $152,584.46, besides several thousand more in

outside interests, aggregating about one-fifth of a million dollars. At least this is what the reports of the assignee say, and if you will not believe The Democrat —perhaps some of you now wish you bad believed it more—yon at least should not doubt the figures of the assignee, himself a republican and the treasurer of the city of Rensselaer. You have all heard how the elder McCoy some years ago used to go about with sacks of flour and turkeys for the widows of Rensselaer about Thanksgiving time —a very laudable thing in itself. The republican papers used to say something about it we believe. Well, every widow in Rensselaer having ten dollars to put away had it in “McCoy’s bank.” You all know of the very swell entertainment or reception given the city teachers by the McCoys at their palatial home on McCoy avenue last fall—the republican papers told about it, if we remember correctly. Well, every teacher in the Rensselaer schools that had any money to his or her name had it in the “McCoy bank,” and all but two were caught, we understand. Tom was a member of the school board of this city and the teachers no doubt wanted to curry favor with him. One teacher even went so far, we understand, as to induce his sister, who resides at some distant point and who was only getting about 4 per cent interest on her savings, some SSOO, to draw it out and let him put it in “McCoy’s bank” and get 6 per cent. It’s still there. You know how the elder McCoy used to tell you how it was a lack of confidence that caused the hard times in the early nineties, and that prosperity was so rampant after the republicans came into power in ’97 that everybody had money, etc. Well, the report of the assignee shows that this same A. McCoy borrowed about $6,000 from the bank in 1895 for thirty and sixty days, respectively, and notwithstanding all the years of prosperity that have passed since then, of which he has prated so much, he has not been able to pay it back. And it was the money of the depositors that he borrowed, too. Now what is the conclusion to draw from all this? Have the McCoys played a great big confidence game on the people? Was the turkey and flour gifts to the widows and the swell receptions to the teachers used as a bait to draw funds to the bank? In dictating who should share in the public “pap” of Jasper county was the best interests of the county considered or was only the personal interests of the McCoys thought of? These are questions that the people, depositors and taxpayers, should ponder over and decide for themselves. The lesson has been a costly one for a great many, but it is hoped its influence will not be lost sight of for some time to come.