Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1905 — BOOK WALTER A SPORT. [ARTICLE]

BOOK WALTER A SPORT.

How much better it might have been if we had let the Chinese in and excluded their firecrackers.

This talk about Senator Depew returning the fees he has drawn from the Equitable, should be printed in the joke column.

The Chicago grand jury takes issue with Commissioner Garfield, and seems to think the beef trust is making more than 1 per cent in some way.

Reports from Georgia indicate that Hoke Smith is very confident of winning the gubernatorial nomination unless some one induces Grover Cleveland to do something in bis favor.

Luther Burbank’s proposition to invent cobless corn will be resented in Missouri, where the corn cob is the basis of one of the state’s leading industries, the manufacture of the Missouri meerschaum.

“The way to railway rebates and corporate corruption,” say Judaon and Harmon, “is to punish the individuals responsible for it.” But the President thinks the right way is to put an “engine” in jail or have a “freight car” arrested.

Managers of some of the county fairs of Indiana are complaining that they cannot pay expenses unless the anti-racing pool selling law is repealed. Well, if county fairs must have open gambling or cease to exist it is better for them to turn up their toes.

Secretary Shaw explains that the government spent $24,000,000 more than he estimated it would, thus causing the deficit. This places the matter in an entirely new light, as we had been led to believe that the deficit was caused by the government spending more than it receivd.

It will be one year and three months next Tuesday since the McCoy bank closed its doors in Rensselaer and hundreds of confiding depositors found that they bad been trusting their hard earned money to a bank of sand. Fifteen months have since rolled by, but the bankers who robbed the depositors of their money are still breathing the air of liberty and not one penny of dividends has a solitary depositor yet received.

“What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” is indeed a true saying when it comes to the enforcement of our laws or to prevent “grafting” by public officials. During the past year and a half, without any authority whatever in law, there was paid out of the impoverished city treasury of Rensselaer, the sum of $l5O for collecting the special assessments of said city to the county treasurer, when the law is that said treasurer must collect all assessments of every nature within the borders of his county, with out extra charge. A claim for SSO more for the same service was filed with the city clerk and came up for action by the council at its meeting Monday night. The Democrat man filed a protest against the allowance of this particular claim and asked that a demand be made for the return of the 1150 that had previously been paid out illegally. Someone had to do this or the city treasury

would be out this sum. It is not always pleasant for an individual to do such things, but there is no “cjvic federation*’ or “taxpayers’ league’’ in Rensselaer to look after such matters, and someone had it to do. The Democrat has frequently pointed out the necessity of a taxpayers’ league in Rensselaer and Jasper county to look after violations of the law and to prosecute them. With such an organization a great many questionable acts by our local officials could be investigated, to the benefit of the tax-payers, and such talk as we now hear, of a county official really being the contractor, doing the work and then accepting the job as completed, in the recent "improvement” to the Burke’s bridge, that cost the county some $1,400, would be unheard of, for no public official would dare to do these things. The Democrat hopes some time to see an organization of tax-payers formed in Rensselaer and in Jasper county to look after such matters.

At Terre Haute on the Fourth the Governor said: "I intend to make the acceptance of railroad passes so distasteful that an honest man will not wish to accept one and a dishonest man will not dare to. The passes are said to be gratutious but the fact that passes stop when officials retire from public office show that passes are given to the office and not to the man. You may think that a wide open town means prosperity, but I don’t think so, and 2,000 persons who had money in your closed bank will agree with me,” said the Governor. “Officials may raise this question of the propriety of a law and want to enforce it just as much as they think the people want it enforced, but I say there is no recourse from enforcing laws in their entirety.”—Exchange. The above sounds nice, and it is hoped that Governor Hanley will not be dissuaded by the lawbreaking element in bis party from making his words good.

Chas. A. Bookwaiter has again landed the republican nomination for mayor of Indianapolis, and if he succeeds in winning out at the election Governor Hanly will havp so much to do in “holding down the lid” in the capital city that he will not have much time to devote to the balance of the state. Bookwaiter is an all around sport and will have things running wide open if he can have his say. Mayor Holtzman has made a good record and can doubtless lay him out again.—Albion Democrat,