Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1898 — JUST ABIT OF THE RECORD. [ARTICLE]

JUST ABIT OF THE RECORD.

The Republican party has kept faith with the big majorities that have sustained its candidates for state offices the last few years. It has rigidly adhered to an economical use of the people’s money which it promised in the election of 1894 and 1896. It has done more, it has enacted laws by which the state has been greatly benefitted financially to the relief of the taxpayer. It has reduced the public debt nearly $1,000,000, and by mahy thousands has lessened the payments of interest. It is not every state administration that can claim the confidence of the voters with such a good record as that. Merely glunciug at it is enough to make the voter warm in favor for the party that has cut off all fees for the use and benefit of state officers, that has by the Mull law established a rigid accounting of every item of official expense, that has siiown the people that state institutions can be carried on without continuously increasing appropriations, and that while reducing tho public debt aud interest can pay out for maintaining war expenses $161,000 in mobilizing, equipiug aud paying Indiana soldiers. Hud it not been for that necessary expense the Republicans would have reduced the priucipal of a state debt over $1,000,000. All this, too, was done without a cent of borrowed money. Rather the state,while payingits own debt aud current expenses under Republican administration, became in this last item of expenditure a lender to the general government, for it must repay the stato the money paid out for putting the national guard into war shape. The vouchers therefor have been sent to Washington and it will not be long before Indiana has the $161,000 back in her treasury again. That will be due solely to promptness in transacting business which is no less than economy, one of the conspicnous virtues of the present state administration. Returns relating to the tinplate industry in Great Britain, as given in The Labor Gazette, show a heavy decrease in activity and output. Compared with March of last year there is a falling off of 139 in the number of mills at work. Out of 64 tinplate works with 372 mills, 331 mills were working during March of this year, thus leaving 41 idle. The explanation is found in the large increase of homemade tinplate now being used in the United States. This is an industry which a free trade president of the United States four years ago sneered at and doubted the existence of.’ He problably knows better by this time.

According to the Democratic auditor of state reports, the state debt interest account of 1893 was increased $2,000. He reported the next-year that it was reduced only SIB,IOO, when he claims a Democratic administration had paid off $910,000 of the debt. The next year the Republicans took oharge aud cut off $56,800 from the interest charge aud nearly $1,000,000 from the state debt principal. Even a better showing than that will be made by the Republican auditor of state at the close of this fiscal year.

When one refers to the state debt it is necessary to use big figures, but big as they are they can be put iu form, so no voter can go astray when he wants to give credit to the party that has within the past few years materially reduced it. That credit belongs to the Republican administration of the last four years. Anyone can take the auditor of state’s report of that time aud figure out when good business methods came iu to lighten the burden of the peoples’ debt.

Through the Dingley tariff the American mills are now having the privilege of manufacturing nearly all the woolen textiles required by the American people. Daring the McKinley period the limit of domestic manufacture was about 80 per cent of the woolens used by this nation. Under the Dingly act, at least for the year 1898, American manufacturers have every promise that even thiß large percentage will be materially increased.—-Glen Falls Times. A prominent Indiana Democrat in the midst of his party’s panic, when its local leaders were under arrest in Mariou county, 12 years ago for forging tally sheets, exclaimed: “It is always the way. Whenever we want anything done we send for a blacksmith.” This story is applicable to Democratic business methods that reduoes the state debts by figures only and increases the interest account $2,000 or more.

Since the Republicans have had charge of state affairs they have cat down the debt, lopped off unnecessary appropriations and saved enough by economical business methods to moire than meet the expenses of the benevolent and penal institutions for a fewr, to pay officers’ salaries for several years to come and to do many other things for the benefit of the people. By requiring all fees to be paid into the treasury for the use of the state the Republicans save more than $)00,000 annually. This not only payß the yearly salaries of nine state officers, but meets the state house custodian’s entire expense and pays the salaries of the tax commissioners, besides leaving a surplus erf about $30,000. * No wonder the Democrats are not saying anything about protection and the wool industry. We cannot see how this generation can be again deceived by Democratic tariff bunkoers. Let the farmers remember the tariff experiences and stick to the party that protects their interests.—Sohenectady Union. If Democratic financiering was such a good thing for the state, how did it come about that while there was a slight reduction of the state debt between 1890 and 1893 the interest thereon increased over $2,000?