Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1892 — The State Debt. [ARTICLE]

The State Debt.

In answer to inquiries, ill regard to the origin and growth of the State debt,the Indianapolis Journal has collected aqd printed from official sources the facts, which prove that the Democratic party is alone responsible for the bad financial condition in which the state finds itself. %he worst of it is, that even with the heavy increase in taxation by the last Democratic Legislature to make extrava-

gant and unnecessary appropriations. As is shown by the official reports the Republicans when in power have reduced the debt every time, wfyile under Democratic admistration&the debt has been constantly growing. At the close of Governor JosephA. Wright’s administration, in 1867, the State debt, as reported by the Awdsiw of State, was 97,782,311. Three years later, in October, 1860 just before the close of Governor Willard’s administration, Mr. John W. Dodd, Democratic Auditor of State, reported the’debt as $10,179,267.09. The report of Dodd, in lpW, as compared with that of TqJbott, in 1867, both Democratic officials, showed

i an increase of the debt during three years of Democrtic admin- ■ i®tration of $2,396,956.09. In 1860 the Republicans untried : I the State and the Lane-Morion administration began January 1861. There had been no ion of the debt since Auditor Dodd’s last report The Republicans, therefore, inherited from the last Democratic administration a debt of §10,179,267.09, as reported by Audtor Dodd in 1860. The war of the rebellion, which began about this time, added $2,904,875.33 to the debt, caused by war loan bonds issued for war pur poses, and by the State’s quota of the direct tax levied by Congress in 1861. The war loan was authorized by the Legislature in 1861 to place the State in a condition to resist invasion and enable her to do her part in the suppreßSioh the rebellion. Owing: to this increase of the State debt during the war, it reached in 1862, the high Water-mark $13,084,142. But rerm ember that §10,179,267.09 of this had been inherited* from the Democrats.

During the next ten years the Republicans reduced the debt $9,146,321.42. In pioof of this we cite Democratic authority. The last annual report of Hon. John C. Shoemaker, a democratic Auditor of State, dated October 31, 1871, showed the debt to be $3,884,430.88. It had been reduced to this sum from $13,084,142.45 by successive Republican administrations, from 1863 to 1871. From this time on the, control' of the Legislature and of the State finances has been in the hands of the Democratic party, and the debt has increased to its present dimensions, nearly §9,000,000. The record shows that during the last thirty years the Democratic party has invariably increased the debt when it had power, while the party has invariably reduced it. At last driven by* theforceof opinion to change it s policy and make some provisions for reducing the debt it had created, the Democratic party passed the present law requiring all property to be assessed at its full cash value and increasing the levy for State purposes 50 per cent. In remains to be seen whether even this will result in any reduction of the debt. > _