Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1890 — DEMOCRATIC WASTE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF INDIANA FINANCES. [ARTICLE]

DEMOCRATIC WASTE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF INDIANA FINANCES.

By degrees the people are beginning to find out all the beauties of Democratic financiering in this State. Every day or two the Sentinel has something to say of the magnificent school fund of the State, and to claim that it is all the result of Democratic wisdom and patriotism. Some of the counties are not so well satisfied As to the Democratic wisdom on that score as the Sentinel seems to be. The schools had a magnificent fund of nearly $4,000,000, which had been loaned to the State to aid it in paying off its foreign indebtedness. On that sum the State paid annually six per cent, interest, which was distributed to the various counties to be used for school purposes. The last General Assembly conceived the idea that it would be better for the State to send its interest money to New York and Connecticut, so they provided by law that the State officers should borrow money in the East and cancel its obligation to the school fund, and that the $4,000,000 should then be distributed among the various counties, to be loaned out in small sums. Money is a drug in many of the counties of the State, and a very large part of that $4,000,000 is now lying idle, producing no income, and the school fund is short that amount. In the meantime the county officers who have control of the fund get a very fair per cent, from the banks where it is deposited. In other words, the Democratic General Assembly got up a scheme whereby county officers could be enriched at the expense of the school children of the State. That is what the Sentinel calls Democratic wisdom and patriotism. It is also remembered that once on a time a Democratic Legislature frittered away several million acres of school lands at about a cent an acre.