Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1874 — A Vindication. [ARTICLE]

A Vindication.

Since the editors of the Rensselaer Union failed to get die present county officers to’go into the movement having for its object the breaking up of the Republican party, they have, in almost every lame of their paper, indulged in insinuations intended to convey the impression that our county officers have been guilty of extravagance and corruption in office. They charge, what the official figures show to be false, that the taxation in this eounty is above the average county taxation in the State. — If this w«ro true, it would prove nothing, as it is not the amount of taxation, bnt the necessity for, and the amount of expenditure that determine the question of economy or extravagance in the management of county affairs. But since the charge is absolutely false, it can not even serve the poor purpose of casting suspicion upon the conduct of our county officials.

County taxes are levied and county money paid out, on the orders of the Board of County Commissioners. TEfey are responsible for the management of the county finances. The Union has not die temerity to attack the integrity of the County Commissioners, individually or collectively. Jared Benjamin, W. K. Parkison and Samuel McCullough, our efficient County Board, are old citixens of the county and well known to all our people. Their honesty, integrity and capability are unquestioned and unquestionable. They are farmers and laboring men and not politicians, and can not, therefore, have any interest in “rings” or “cliques,” the existence of which the Union is so fond of charging. They are intelligent and worthy men and have filled their present offices so acceptably to the pebple that two of them, Benjamin and McCullough, have been honored by a re-election, while Parkison has been called, with no solicitation upon his part to fill the office for three terms, and now, aside from party, is the almost unanimous choice of the people for another term. That they are not holding their offices for pay is shown by the fact that they have taken but four dollars a day for their services, although the law allows them five. Being men of property, and taxpayers, it would not be to their interest to levy unnecessary taxes when the burden of paying them would fall upon themselves as well as upon others. The charge, therefore, or rather the insinuation that they have imposed useless tax upon us, is senseless as it is reckless. If the editors of the Union have any self-respect left, let them cease their groundless innuendoes. If there is any foundation whatever for their intimations ai.d hints, let them make the charges direct and sustain them by proof. If they do not do this, all intelligent persons must regard their insinuations as being inspired by demagog ism for political effect. We assert and challenge proof to the contrary, that our Board of County Commissioners have not levied one dollar of unnecessary tax; and that they have not authorized the expenditure of one dollar of money when it was not necessary that it should be expended.— And we moreover assert, and challenge proof to the contrary, that not a single dollar of the people’s money has been mis-appropriated by any of our couniv officers. The county recoas are open to the inspection of the public. The Union men are especially invited to examine them Let them do so and make some tangible accusation against the county officers, or else cease their inexcusable misrepresentations and slanders.