Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1898 — A Grossly False Statement. [ARTICLE]

A Grossly False Statement.

We submit that the removal of those four pages from the Commissioners’ record is without a parallel—it is an unheard of manner of correcting errors in public records. —Jasper County Democrat. And we “respectfully submit” that any paper which will try to blacken the good reputation of a hard working, faithful and efficient county official such as Mr. Murray is, in the manner the Democrat has done, and then attempt to justify its course by such utterly reckless and false statements as this we quote, is wholly unworthy of the respect and confidence of anyone. Here is a very sweeping assertion; the remark that the outting out of leaves from a public record to correct an error is unheard of. Has the editor of the Democrat ever‘made any such extended investigation as to justify him in making this assertion? *lf he has not made such an investigation, then he makes a sweeping and condemnatory assertion on a matter which he knows nothing about; and he therefore knows that what he says is very likely to be false. If he has made such an investigation then he has found many oases where errors in public record books have been corrected in that very way, and the assertion he makes is knowingly false. Instead of the removal of leaves from record books being an unheard of thing, we will venture to say that there is probably not a county in the state nor even an office in any county where such instances have not at some time or other occurred. j To illustrate the trutlr of this assertion of ours and also to show the criminal recklessness, and worse than recklessness of this assertion of the Democrat, let us see what even a few minutes’ investigation right here at our own court house will result in. And we do not need to investigate all the offices in the county, nor even all the records of even one office. The past records right in the auditor's office show plenty of instances to prove the falseness of the Democrat’s assertion. And more than that we need not look any farther than the records made by the last Democratic auditor of this county. In commissioners’ record No. 6, kept by a democratic auditor, there are not less than three piaces where pages have been removed. In that record pages 165 and 166, pages 295-296, pages 343-344 have all been removed, and that it was done to correct errors is evident from the fact that the records as they now are, read continuously. During the same auditors’ incumbency pages 107-108 of road record No. 3 were removed. As to places where records have been crossed out, even after approval by the commissioners, and without any accompanying explanation, they are numerous during that same auditor’s incumbency, and also of our other previous democratic auditors. In one case, in a road record, a viewers’ report and order establishing a road, are crossed out, and no explanation is given, and no one can tell from the record whether it is now a legal road or not. We cite these instances to show that, even among democratic officials, it has been a common practice to remove leaves from record books, and in so doing we intend no censure on those exofficials, for we are confident the acts were done with honest intent, and harmed no one. Bnt where do these instances leave the Democrat with its sweeping assertion that such methods of correcting errors in jrtSblic records have heretofore been unheard of?