Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1905 — “CLARKEY” NEVER KICKS. [ARTICLE]

“CLARKEY” NEVER KICKS.

The “Voice of the People” came very near damaging its vocal chords in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Just “a couple of numbers” down on the programme, will be the bout between the President and “the most deliberate body on earth.” J For many persons the question whether Tammany stuffed the ballot box will be largely only a question whether Tammany “had the chance.” Now that the excitement is over in other parts of the country, lowa politicians may resume the pleasant occupation of eating each other up. And now Starke county is falling in line against granting liquor licenses. Washington tp.. in that county, has gone “dry” for two years at least. Voting machines were used in the Chicago election, and the results were known in a half hour after the polls closed. A voting machine was also used in New York and the real result is not known yet. President Gompers of the Federation of Labor, sent a telegram to St. Petersburg, saying, “The cause of Liberty should not be smirched with atrocities and crime.” He apparently wants the fight in Russia to be as different as possible from a Chicago strike. The grand jury of Marshall county has recently returned sixty indictments for violation of the cigarette law. This law is a dead letter in Rensselaer and it is nouncommon sight to see boys go along the street puffing a “coffinnail.” Our officers must of necessity see this, yet nary arrest has ever been made here for violations of the law. Referring to the gambling joints at Francesville, Prosecutor Chas. C. Kelly states that he will probably institute a court of inquiry at Francesville as soon as the present session of court is over in Starke county and endeavor to help the good citizens maintain law and order. Winamac Republican. By the way, if one-half the reports here are true, the prosecutor of this judicial circuit might conduct a “court of inquiry” at Rensselaer that would make it uncomfortable for the gamblers and quite profitable for the prosecutor. W. H. Robertson, former proprietor of the Wheatfield Telephone, seems to be acquiring considerable notice at Fowler, where he is now editing the Fowler Republican, one of the two republican organs of Benton county. The party is somewhat split up over there locally, and The Fowler Leader represents the anti-liquor faction while the Republican, under Robertson’s management, seems to lean the other way. Robertson gave Lod Sleeper, one of the opposite faction politicians, one of his characteristic “roasts” recently and Sleeper called at the office to whip the editor. A few blows were exchanged and finally Sleeper secured a good hold on Robertson’s football locks and was about to enforce his argument a la Fitzsimmons, when a young lady employe of the Re-

publican came to the rescue and a truce in hostilities was declared. Bro. Carr, of the Leader, also had a call from a politician of his opposing faction who wanted John to go out on the sidewalk, but the latter argued that it was cold outside and the sidewalk was very hard; told the gentleman that he preferred the tall timber and soft ground for fighting, and the politician went away. Bro. Roby of the Review, the democrat organ, says: “Running a democratic newspaper is one of the few peaceful occupations in town.” The appellate court has decided that cities have no right to use the taxpayers money to pay bonuses to secure industries. That is, that a bonus cannot be raised by taxing the people. -The decision was by Judge Roby, and the court intimated that the city might recover any moneys paid out for such purposes. The court well said: There have been many attempts made to appropriate public funds for the encouragement of manufactories, but the power to do so has been universally denied. The benefit resulting to the local public of a town by the establishment of manufactories is not different in kind from the benefit to such public arising from the establishment and operation of grocery stores. The manufacturer, the mechanic and the laborer are equal promoters of the public good and equally entitled to public aid. No line can be drawn in favor of one to the exclusion of the others, and a recognition of the right thus to distribute money procured by taxation would subject the municipalities to importunities and impositions innumerable.

“Now The Democrat is kicking on that new waiting room in the court house fitted up for the use of the farmers’ wives and their children."-—Journal. “Farmers’ wives and their children” forsooth. How many of the "farmers’ wives and their children” from Carpenter township will come over to 101 l about in this waiting room? And Carpenter pays something more than onefifth of the entire taxes of the county, too. How many of the ‘farmers’ wives and their children” from Wheatfield, Kankakee, Walker or other out townships will come down here to tread on that hundred dollar brussels carpet or sit on the leather-covered couches? How many, to get nearer home, of the “farmers’ wives and their children” from Marion township, even will drop their work and rush in to Rensselaer to brush their clothes and sit in those easy rockers which their money has paid for? “Farmers’ wives and their children” are too busy in the great majority of cases in Jasper county looking after their home work and earning enough money to pay for tiling and ditching their lands and the exhorbitant county taxes — made so by just such useless and uncalled for extravagance as this —to fool away much time when they come to town in lolling about upholstered waiting rooms in the court house. The Court House is a county building, and not a hotel. It should be used for county business only, and when the county placed toilet rooms, etc., therein —which are really intended for the use only of the public having business thereat and for the county officers it discharged every obligation that the taxpayers owed to the public, or that part of the public, rather, having business to transact there. The county, which is the taxpayers of the county, are under no obligations whatever to any other part of the public except those having business at the court house, and this thing of spending public money for such purposes as this is alleged to be, is altogether wrong. If it is really desired that the “farmers wives and their children” —oh, what love the politician has for the farmers’ wives and their children when it comes to spending their money, and what excuses they can invent for the uncalled for and unnecessary extravagance they put upon them—even to call

and look at these rooms when in town, perhaps it would be a good idea to hire a vaudeville company —at county expense, of course — to entertain them while here, advertising the thing largely so they would be sure to come. It might be a good plan also to add a case thereto and hire a French chef—with the taxpayers money —and have an elegant free lunch served to the poor downtrodden “farmers’ wives and children” when they come to town; also hire a band of musicians to discourse entrancing strains of music the meanwhile. How the memory of the free (?) entertainment which their money was paying for would linger with them; and they would, no doubt, often put off necessary labor at home in order to again taste the pleasures of the free entertainment provided for them at the county seat by the county officers, who without leave or license had used their money for this purpose. If Jasper county is going into this business of furnishing upholstered waiting rooms, etc., for the public, The Democrat believes in doing the thing right, or the “farmers’ wives and their children” might soon tire of lolling about on velvet carpets and leather covered furniture, which their money has paid for but which in few instances they can afford to have in their own homes, and prefer to go back to their own bare floors and wood-seated chairs. But, seriously, did the “farmers’ wives and their children” ask that all this be done for them or did the county moguls in the fullness of their hearts and the great love they bore for the tiller of the soil anticipate their desires and appropriate their hard earned money for this purpose without waiting to be asked? The Journal never kicks at anything that is done. All “Clarkey” wants is plenty of opportunity to charge the county four prices for supplies and you’ll never hear a kick out of him. They might put a pipe organ in the court house tower or place marble statuary about the* court house yard for the sparrows to roost on, or use the taxpayers’ money for any other illegitimate purpose, but you’d never hear a cheep out of “Clarkey” so long as no obstructions were placed in the way of his getting in bis gaft on supplies at his own prices. Nary a cheep. The Democrat, however, expects to kick on all such useless and uncalled for expenditures of the public moneys and expect to continue to have the moral backing of the people in such kicking. It also expects, some day, for the

taxpayers of Jasper county to register a kick that will raise all the fellows who are spending their money so recklessly, so high that they will wish for some upholstered furniture or something soft to light on.