Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1917 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts ot the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings in the Nearby Cities and Towns—Matters of Minor Mentioa from Many Places. SENSATION IN STARKE COUNTY Former Auditor Ransbottom Negotiated Illegal Road Bonds. Starke county, which has been the scene of considerable wrongdoing among public officials during the past few years, is again” shaken from top to bottom by disclosures which have just come to light. Former County Auditor Lee M. Ransbottom, who served two terms as county auditor and stood very highly in that county, although it has since been disclosed that the records in his office were in very bad shape, is being sought for securing a bunch of “easy money," either from the county or the purchasers 0 * of spurious gravel road bonds aggregating $38,200. In the fall of 1909, during the second term of Mr. Ransbottom, four sets of 4% per cent gravel road bonds were issued, and the bonds printed and signed by the county commissioners, as follows: (Moorman road, $10,000; Guernsey road, $17,500; Burns road, SB,200; Geddes road, $2,500. Bonds were not selling very good in those days of Republican prosperity and no bids were received. Along the following April it was decided to issue i?ew bonds for the same amounts, but bearing 5% per cent Interest. This was accordingly done and the auditor was directed to destroy the 4i£ per cent bonds which did not sell. Ransbottom always abrogated to himself the right to sell all the bond issues, although the law makes it the duty of the county treasurer to do so, and while the records in the auditor’s office do not disclose who the bonds were sold to or just when they were sold, the various funds were credited with the face value of the bonds in June, 1910. The bonds w-ere dated back to October, 1909, and there was about $1,400 accrued interest at the time they were finally sold, but there is no record of what price the bonds

were sold at and no accrued interest was ever turned into the county treasurer. The county has been paying interest on these 5y 2 per cent bonds and taking them up as they became due since that time. A few days some of the these old 4 % per cent bonds, which were supposed to have been together with interest coupons thereon, were sent to a bank at Knox for collection, coming from the Citizens’ National bank at Crawfordsville, where it is claimed Ransbottom sold some SIO,OOO of the bonds last fall. The present auditor refused to issue his warrant and proposes to let the courts decide the matter. Whether the county is liable or not, the bonds really having been signed by the county commissioners, is a mooted question. It is very evident,, however, that the county must pay, the purchasers lose or Ransbottom’s bondsmen be held liable. His last official bond was for SIO,OOO and was signed by John L. Moorman, editor of the Starke County. Republican, Herbert R. Coffel, John W. Horner, Oscar B. Smith, Henry C. Rodgers, Abel Rea, Lee Wolfe and John C. Jones. Two sets of the bonds were sold by Ransbottom to the Crawfordsville bank and another set was sold to the Dime Savings bank of Toledo, Ohio. Several of the bonds are past due and it is thought that Ransbottom made no effort to dispose of such. Those which he did negotiate are understood to have been sold last December. His whereabouts are at present unknown, but he is thought to be in Canada. He is said to have been in Ober, Starke county, about six weeks ago. Ransbottom was very much opposed to the public accounting law and a few years ago refused to draw a warrant to pay for the services of accountants in his county. Judge Vurpillat of Starke county, in a suit brought there to test this law, declared the law unconstitutional, but the supreme court held otherwise. Ransbottom is also said to have been very vehement in his denunciation of the public accounting law at the meetings of the state auditor’s association. His brother Walter, who was a former trustee of Washington township, Starke county, was found short in his accounts but made good the shortage, and left the county, locating in, Michigan. It irony that in Starke county where a treasurer, a sheriff, a recorder, an auditor and two township trustees have been defaulters, where certain officials made school fund loans that they did not wish the public to know about, that the most determined effort was made to abolish the public accounting law.

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