Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1905 — SENSATION IN NEWTON COUNTY. [ARTICLE]

SENSATION IN NEWTON COUNTY.

Change of Administration Uncovers Bad “Mistakes” of Former Officials. Over in Newton county, last campaign, someone said something about a change in county administration ought to be made to see if everything was “straight.” The republicans immediately appointed a committee of emminent republicans who visited the court house,* cracked a few jokes about the democrats, smoked some county officer cigars and reported that everything was found shipshape, every dollar was accounted for and the accounts balanced to a penn. Within ten days of the going in of the new democratic auditor and treasurer it was discovered that a stone road contractor on the McClellan township roads had been allowed and paid (at least the records show he was paid) two allowances each of sl, 883.36, when he should have been pa d this amount but once. The ex-officials now admit that the "error’’ as discovered is there, but say it was a “mistake.” And now comes the most startling announcement of the discovery, in the contractor’s statement that if the commissioners allowed the claim twice and the county paid twice, he has never received the pay but once. The “errors” was made some nine months ago, several months before the republican investigating committee reported everything correct to a penny. The Democrat says that several more shortages or “error” have been found in checking up the accounts by the new officers, which will soon be made public. Of course nothing of this kind could be found in saintly Jasper yet the stand patters in Newton were equally positive that everything was “all rignt.” If an examination of the records is even made here, or if the people of this county ever lay aside partisan politics long enough to make a change in some of the county offices, it may be found that things are not always what the stand patters proclaim.