Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1902 — INDIANA THE HOST ECONOMICALLY MANAGED STATE IN THE UNION [ARTICLE]

INDIANA THE HOST ECONOMICALLY MANAGED STATE IN THE UNION

When it comes to the election of members of the legislature on Nov. 4, your vote means one of two things—either you do or you don’t care whether or not the state’s business is carried on in an economical, businesslike manner in which you would want a company in which you were a stockholder to be conducted. Either you will cast your vote in favor of continuing the present debt-destroy-ing, expense-reducing state administration, or you will express a perference for a start in a new direction. This is as certain as the result of an arithmetical process, correctly carried out—if experience teaches anyV>ingHere are the facts: Indiana is today the most economically managed state in the Union. Within the past seven years of Republican control a state debt of seven and a half million dollars has been cut in two, and, with present conditions continued, will soon be wiped out. The tax levy, fixed at 18 cents on the >IOO under the last period of Democratic control of state affairs, has been reduced under the Republican regime to 14 cents. All this has been accomplished in spite of the expenditure of more than >l,600,000 in the permanent improvement of the state penal and charitable institutions, the completion of the soldiers’ monument and the establishment of the state soldiers’ home at Lafayette. Reform laws have been passed which have reduced the burdens of local taxation and have resulted in the turning into the state’s treasury of thousands of dollars in fees which formerly went to private coffers. The per capita cost of the maintenance of the state’s wards in various institutions has been materially decreased. Republican state and legislative candidates stand for a continuance of these conditions, and you have a chance to indorse or repudiate the record.