Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1906 — A BIT OF HISTORY [ARTICLE]

A BIT OF HISTORY

The tux rate for the purpose of raising county revenue in Jasper county for next year is 71 11-20 cents on each SIOO valuation, one of the highest, if not the highest, levies ever made in the county. Sixteen cents of this is for court house bonds, SIO,OOO of which fall due next year, and our republican friends tell you this levy is necessary to pay off these bonds. Now. if it is necessary to make a levy of 16 cents to pay off $lO,000 court house bonds, what would the necessary levy have been to pay the $23,190 of county funds lost in the McCoy bank had the bill passed by the last general assembly have become a law? And that, too. on top of the already high levy. There were a great many people in Jasper county —regardless of politics—who remonstrated against the passage of this bill, thinking that the loss should not be saddled onto the taxpayers but should be borne by the treasurer and his bondsmen who were using the office for what could be got out of it. The House Journal shows that Curtis D. Meeker, the republican candidate for re-election for jointrepresentative from the counties of Jasper and White—then representative from Pulaski and White—voted for this infamous measure when it came up for passage Feb. 2,1905. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Hanly (see House Journal, page 1422) and a lengthy statement of his reasons for so doing, accompanied the veto when sent back to the House, concluding with these words: “In conclusion I venture to express the hope that there is not a member of the General Assembly, who will be willing to sustain this measure upon a careful oonsidera-

tion of the authorities cited, in view of the public policy involved and his oath to support the Constitution of the State." House Journal, page 1449, shows that on the morning of Feb. 23, 1905, this bill together with the governor’s veto message was taken up for further consideration in compliance with 4.rt. 5, Sec. 15, of the Constitution of the State, the question being, shall the bill pass, notwithstanding the objections of the governor thereto? Mr. Meeker with Jive other gentlemen voted (lad the bill should pass! Now, Mr. Taxpayer of Jasper county, can yon cast your ballot Nov. 6 for Curtis D. Meeker? It’s up to you to decide. This act alone, if there were no others, ought to occasion you no great amount of time to consider. Some of the Republican leaders who are scared by the popular disapproval of the “stand pat” slogan are now declaring that tariff revision will have to come. But they insist that the tariff must be reformed “by its friends.” Judge R. S. Taylor, another eminent Republican, says that that excuse is worn out. The truth is that the tariff will not be reformed until the people compel it by electing a Democratic congress. That is the way the hold of the trusts can be broken. A vote for William Darroch is a vote against the trusts. In the city of Rensselaer, where only a few books are kept by the county treasurer and where there is no hint that anything may be wrong, the city council has gone on record for an investigation to run back to 1892, fourteen years. Yet one member of this same council refused a few years ago to sign a petition with one thousand other representative taxpayers of the county asking for an investigation of the multitudinous county records, which have not been investigated for a quarter of a century, if ever!