Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1917 — REPUBLICANS SOON DISSIPATE RESERVE [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICANS SOON DISSIPATE RESERVE

Six Millions to the Good Left By Democrats is Rapidly Vanishing. BUILDING “NO MEAN CITY” Some Eye-Opening Facts Showing Why Opposing Newspapers so Bitterly Denounce and Persecute Mayor Bell. By Willis S. Thompson. Indianapolis, June . < —When Governnor Thomas R. Marshall, Auditor W. H. O’Brien and Treasurer W. H. Vollmer took over the job of managing state finances, they found' a Republican debt of $2,609,163.12. Cash in the treasury was only $9,463.91. All the counties had been milked dry with demands for advance payments, future revenues had been anticipated and spent, with nothing coming in from any source. All state institutions were run down and needing extensive repairs. None were properly or decently supported. Repairs were made, new instiutions built, paid for and placed under efficient non-political management. All state debts made by Republicans were paid. The day Governor Goodrich took office there was turned over to him an actual cash balance of $5,699,331.94, with not one penny of debt. The first day of June, five months after he received the big Democratic cash balance, this cash on hand had been reduced to $3,329,387.10, and strenuous efforts have been made for the full five months to find a way to levy extraordinary taxes in order to coyer the deficit which the Republican administration anticipates. Fine comparison of records.

Since when Thomas Taggart was mayor of Indianapolis, no man who has held that job has been so viciously and maliciously abused by the press as has Mayor Joseph E. Bell. Since when Taggart was mayor no man in the job done so many constructive things. Mayor Bell has done larger things and more of them that permanently benefit the people than all the mayors that ever preceded. He has done big things that others promised but never did. He has done them economically and thoroughly. His record stands today as one. of the strongest reasons for believing that the next mayor of Indianapolis is going to be Dick Miller, the Democratic nominee. While it has cost him unlimited personal abuse and villification, he has demonstrated that it is good for the people at large to have officials who will not surrender government to unscrupulous newspapers, even when they go so far as to indict, and to conspire with prosecutors to pay the people’s money for perjured witnesses in attempting conviction. Much was done to retard all things undertaken during the past four years. When he.was elected mayor, Bell had promised that he would elevate all railroad tracks. The retiring administration, dominated by ‘the

News, sought to wreck his plans ana give contracts to suit the railroads and throw a last reward to their political friends. The first act of Mayor Bell was to repudiate these contracts, which provided for lowering all streets into dark tunnels under the tracks and depreciating property values for many blocks either way. He demanded track elevation of the right sort, and he got it. Trains will run over these elevated tracks during 1917. Other cities of the state will sooner than some may imagine be confronting this same problem. The work of Mayor Bell stands a model of speed and good results. A stream of no mean size and a menace to the health of a large part of the population had furnished candidates with stuff to talk about for years. They had all promised to cover this nuisance. Joseph Bell promised it. The News said he could not do this and all the things he was pledging. After the election the News and the retiring administration hurried a contract to go to their friends. That contract stands today to accuse them. It provided for paying $1,800,000 for the job rushed through in a haphazard way. Mayor Bell stopped the signing of the contract by court injunction and was denounced for so doing. When he took his seat as mayor he let the contract on proper bids and specifications, and it is finished and cost the city $907,000, just half what the News and its friends tried to pay for the job. Four automobiles can drive through this drain abreast. Candidate Bell also promised flood fmotection. He said he would build a evy, have a boulevard on top of it, with parking and sidewalks, and would do it inside of $1,500,000. The News said this impossible promise made him unfit for the job, that he could not do it for $5,000,000. He did not get to start until the legislature of 1915 gave him an enabling act. That levy, with boulevard and parking, is complete. It cost the city less than $1,200,000. Not a word of credit from newspapers. Indianapolis is the only city in any state that has this work done since the flood of 1913. He is lighting the city by the best and cheapest contract in the United States. It is saving the people more than a million dollars in the ten years. The News and the public service commission tried to kill the contract, and Mayor Bell, backed by public sentiment, won. The story is not half told, No wonder, then, that the people of Indianapolis want to see the same sort of work continue. People of the state will not wonder that Dick Miller is the one best bet for the next mayor tv succeed Joseph v E. Bell.

Fine correspondence paper on sale in The Democrat’s fancy stationery department in dozens of different styles and at prices ranging from 10c to 75c per box.