Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1905 — THE CASE OF MR. STORMS [ARTICLE]

THE CASE OF MR. STORMS

The “lid” has been put on effectually at Hammond once more, it is said, by the new board of police commissioners appointed recently by Governor Hanly, and Monday was the first Christmas in the city’s history that the saloons were closed. And now comes a California professor who claims to have perfected a food for poultry that will make hens lay in the winter time, when the price of eggs is away out of sight, whether they want to or not. What a grand thing education is. And now Governor Hanly has demanded the resignation of Secretary of State Daniel E. Storms of Lafayette because of certain irregularities of his office which have not been made public as yet. What’s the matter with all these republican state officials anyhow? Indebtedness to the Chicago Tribune is acknowledged for the discriminating point that “the principal difference between having and football is that, if a man is hurt while playing football, the other fellows do not run away and leave him.” And moreover, anybody, for a small admission fee, can see what is going on at the ball field.

An Indianapolis paper says of the Storms affair: The conditions that have developed in the State House are disgraceful to the people of Indiana. One State officer has been driven from office and indicted for crime against the people, another was forced to resign a few days ago for irregularities, and now the Governor has demanded the resignation of another on the ground that he has mismanaged the public funds trusted to his keeping.

Indianapolis News: It was known to many people soon after the Sherrick shortage was discovered that Secretary of State Storms was in difficulty, and that there was grave doubt of his ability to settle with the State. But as he did settle at the proper time, little attention —perhaps too little —was paid to hie case. But the adjustment had hardly been made before rumor was busy with the inode of the adjustment. And now it is charged that the transaction was marked by many objectiunal features. Mr. Storms had invested his money or that of the State in certain securities of which little is known, except that the banks were willing to lend money on them. When the Sherrick shortage was exposed, Storms was required by the banks to pay his loans, and this he found it difficult to do Something more than $40,000 was raised on his securities, which were turned over to John J. Appel as trustee—as was tire rest of the property of Mr. Storms. The balance of the sum needed to make his settlement (some $30,000, report says) was borrowed, it is said, from friends here and in Lafayette. So the debt was paid, and Storms is now square with the State. But we do not know from whom he got the money, or whom he, as an officer of the State of Indiana, is under obligations for a great service done him in the hour of his trouble. We know that he do<e u.ot control even his own salary, all of which, except an allowance for living expenses, is turned over to the trustee. Is Mr. St >rms really a State officer any longer, or simply the representative of the men who stood by him?

Mr. Storms, as Secretary of State, and as member of the State Tax Board, has many important duties to perform. He is charged with numerous important functions. Therefore, it is necessary that he should be wholly above suspicion. We do not think that Mr. Storms now meets these requirements. The State should have in this important office a man that will be responsible to itself alone, and not to unknown gentlemen that helped him make up a shortage that ought never to have existed. The people will not countenance settlements made by the aid of bargains with unknown parties—men or corporations—nor will they much longer tolerate in office a man who fails or refuses to treat public funds as public funds. With the Sherrick exposure a new method of transacting the public business was inaugurated in Indiana. That method will prevail more widely, and will, we may be sure, extend even to county offices. Everybody knows that for years State officers have dealt with the people’s money as though it was their own The time for that sort of business has passed. Mr. Storms has done perhaps only what many of his predecessors did without question. But a new day hah dawned. While the Secretary of State settled on the day required, he nevertheless belongs to the old regime. As a State officer he has made himself impossible. No decently managed bank would retain in its service a man who had managed its business as Mr. Storms has managed the business of the State. The State certainly is entitled to as good service as banks demand. This whole question of the safe keeping of the public money is one of the most important now before the people. The use of this money for the enrichment of its custodians and of banks to which those custodians are under obligations must cease. Whatever interest such funds earn must go to the people to whom it belongs. As it is now, the struggle for certain great offices is not a struggle for the office, but for the control of the funds which are intrusted to the incumbent of the office. As a result, public and private business, and politics are all corrupted. Mr. Storms is no more guilty than many other men have been. He has simply survived to a time when the old methods will do longer be tolerated, and measured by the new and higher standard his unfitness for the position which he holds is painfully apparent. In some way he must be got rid of.