Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1905 — GOING THE LIMIT. [ARTICLE]

GOING THE LIMIT.

And now let the city council take same action toward recovering that money that has been illegally paid to county treasurers for collecting special assessments for the city. Three killed and scores of broken shoulders, broken arms, and legs and other seripus injuries in the football record for the week. It is encouraging, however, to note that the “game” is being cut out of some of the prominent high schools of the country and is being more frowned upon by the public and many of the leading colleges. Like the democratic party being the “whiskey party,” the Irish have long suffered the ignomy of' each and every mother’s son of them being called imbibers of and lovers\f “the cratur.” Here is ample evidence that they have been basely libeled, for Ireland has just gone “dry” by a good majority. The Ireland in this instance, however, is a town located in Dubois county, this state. A report completed by Statistician Stubbsshows" the entire acreage of Indiana corn this year to be 4,018,432 acres, a total yield of 170,826,921 bushels, which is larger than any year except 1902. Benton Couuty has the largest yield and Rush the best average per acre, it being 54.70 bushels. Stubbs says this year’s corn crop would buy every man in Indiana a S2O suit and every woman a S2O dress. Score another tally for The Democrat. “The Tax-payer’s Friend,” please. It was the only paper in Rensselaer that made any objections to the city council’s appointing a street commissioner and thus paying out unnecessarilly $540 per year for labor that could just as well be done—and of right should be done —by the marshal. The Democrat’s criticisms in this matter aroused public sentiment against the proposition to such an extent that every member of the council at Monday night's meeting voted to abolish the office.

Jasper county certainly spends money like a lord, and, like the city of Rensselaer in the past, it doesn’t make much difference whether she has it to spend or not, it goes just the same. The latest unnecessary piece of extravagance was the fitting up of the so-called ladies’ waiting room at the court house with a hundred dollar Brussels carpet, leathercovered couches, easy chairs, etc. We doubt if there is another county in the state that has gone to this length of extravagant expenditure of the people's money. This room (there are really two of the rooms) was already furnished with folding chairs, steam radiators for heating, had nice hard maple floors, the walls and ceiling were frescoed and it was really the equal of any waiting room to be found in the very best railroad stations in the country. It was good enough for the purpose it is alleged it is for, for any town or city in the country. Not one in a hundred of the farmers who are taxed to furnish this room has or can afford to have as fine a furnished room in his own home as this, and with our county away beyond the limit

of bonded indebtedness, with hundreds of poor devils trying to make a living for their families and pay drainage and county taxes, such acts of unnecessary of extravagance as this should be frowned upon. Another example of extravagant expenditure of the people’s money that we want to call attention to right here is in the cottage lately erected at the State Soldiers Home at Lafayette by Jasper county. Not satisfied with erecting a cottage that would have been more in keeping with the county’s wealth and resources —even prospective resources—and would have been far above the average of those of counties that so far as wealth and population is concerned could, figuratively speaking, wrap Jasper county up in one corner of their handerchief and not notice the lump that it made, we must put up a cottage that in point of cost is scarcely equaled by any of the older and wealthier counties of the state, costing approximately $5,000. Not one in a dozen of the cottages erected by the older counties cost $2,000, but Jasper must make a spluge. and spend $5,000! One half that sum would have erected a building that would have answered every purpose and then have been above the average. Such reckless goody and uncalled for expenditure of county funds must excite the pity of all right thinking persons for the intelligence of the people of a county that will permit their funds to be used for vulgar show rather than comfortable necessities. The tax-payers of Jasper county are under no obligations to furnish and maintain public parlors in their court house the equal of those to be found only in the best hotels in the country, neither are they under obligations to build a cottage at the soldiers home that is equaled only by two or three counties in the state with wealth and population so far exceeding our own that there is no comparison. Such wanton waste of the public funds should be stopped, but so long as the people endorse by their votes such acts they may expect to continue to be ground down by high taxes.