Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1891 — PUBLIC TRUSTS AND PRIVATE FORTUNES. [ARTICLE]

PUBLIC TRUSTS AND PRIVATE FORTUNES.

“AGAINST DAN LAMONT” “ALSO AGAINST SOME OTHERS OF THE CLEVELAND MEN.” '■= Before Mr. Lamont becomes n candidal e for office there is one thing we would like to have explained. He went to Washington in 1885 a poor man, and he remained there until 1889 on a salary that would not allow of any great savings. He is now said to be a millionaire, and was said to be a millionaire almost immediately after the close of the Cleveland Administration. How did he get his money? The case of Mr. Cleveland has been something of a puzzle to plain people. He had a very moderate fortune when nominated for Governor, and, according to common report, spent about a quarter of it in the canvass. In the course of five years he went through two Presidential canvasses which must have been costly also. His earnings as Governor and President in six years were $220,000, a handsome sum; but his expenditures must have been pretty heavy. Immediately on retiring from office he bought a house in New York and a cottage by the seashore, and took up a style of life that only a very wealthy man could adopt To be sure, he cleared SIOO,OOO out of the Bed Top job; but even that would hardly account for his apparent financial position. His business success while in politics is certainly remarkable, but Mr. Lamont’s is more so. There are other members of the Cleveland Administration who seem to have enjoyed unusual financial prosperity in the service of their country. Apparently these gentlemen found public office not only a public trust but a private Eldorado.—New York Post-Express. It may be only a coincidence, but our older readers will| remember the case of George M. Dallas. He was elected by the vote of his state, Pennsylvania, which was carried by the cry of “Polk, Dallas, Old Pap Shunk and the Tariff of 42.” When the vote of the Senate was a tie on the “Walker Tariff” he passed it, casting his vote as Vice-President, and the ironworkers of Pennsylvania, covering their puddling furnace chimneys with “Dallas night caps,” the empty, flour barrels their wages would no longer fill, moved West. Before his election Mr. Dallas was supposed to be in impecunious circumstances, but he returned to Philadelphia in affluent circumstances after his four years’ service at Washington. Mr. Dallas, however, delivered the goods.— American Economist