Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1904 — A WEIRD PLATFORM [ARTICLE]

A WEIRD PLATFORM

Promatgated by Second Section of the j Reorganizers' State Convention. NATIONAL ISSUES ARE IGNORED The Framer of Phrase® About Extravagance and Waste Has Something of a Record Himself as a Tax Consumer—Platform Is Characterized by Some Planks of Incompre- < Sensible Littleness. —— p-r::’: i:r:~ platform adopted at the second section of thd yon- ThGPjBB Taggart s personally conducted convention ia a remarkable document. It is silent on Mtional Issues, except for one para"'frapb endorsing the work of the national convention and another eulogizing Mr. Taggart, the newly elected national chairman. Never before in the history of Indiana has a Deraocratic state convention so completely Ignored national issues. It is apparent from a reading of the remainder •f the platform that this was not because of a desire to accentuate state Issues, for it is doubtful if there was ever injected into the state platform mt any political party such a collection •f trivialities as are presented in tkia geclaration of “principles.” Conspicuous for its absence Is Any declaration relative to the refusal of two Indiana governors to honor requisitions for the return of Governor Taylor of Kentucky to the packed juries and prostituted courts which have been employed in furthering the purposes of Goebelism. The Indiana Democracy thus confesses that in this, as in other essential matters, its judgment has been hopelessly at fault. Concerning the State Debt. The discussion of state issues, and particularly of state finance in this document, is characterized either by an unusual degree of misinformation, or a persistent desire to misrepresent. (With respect to the state debt, that monument to Democratic extravagance and mismanagement which is being so rapidly reduced toward the vanishing point under a Republican state administration, the statement is made that under Democratic officials, since the •nactment of the tax law of 1891, the reduction of the debt was more rapidly effected than it has been during the •asuing period of Republican fiscal and legislative control, and this statement ll supported by “statistics” manufactured out of whole cloth,. The state debt in 1891 was $8,830,615.12. During the four years following a redaction of was effected, and of this amount $723,000 was received from the government in re-payment pf the direct war tax. In other words the average annual reduction of the debt, instead of being $243,206.17 “from current revenues” as declared in the Democratic state platform, was considerably less than SIOO,OOO. In the nine years which have succeeded the retirement of Democratic leadership from control of the legislative and fiscal affairs of the state, the debt lias been reduced $5,608,000. Of this amount between $600,000 and $700,000 came from the general government as reimbursement for expenditures made by the state of Indiana for the equipment of troops during the civil war. Deducting this amount, it will be seen that under Republican control the state debt has been disappearing at the rate of a half million dollars per year. The Question of Extravagancm.

“In reality," the Democratic state platform goes on to say, “the Republican administration of state affairs has been extravagant and wasteful.” The sincerity of that assertion from this particular source is illustrated by the fact that the presiding officer of the convention and one of the framers of this platform was the Hon. Alonzo Greene Smith. Mr. Smith was attorney general of the state of Indiana from November 22, 1890, to November 22, 1894. Under a Democratic fee and salary law he helped to. pass, Mr. Smith drew from the state treasury, according to his own reports, fees as follows in addition to his salary: For fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 1891. $ 7,782.76 For fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 1892 12,001.30 For fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 1893 15,811.77 For fiscal year ending OcL 31, 1894 31,679.79 From Oct. 81, 1894 to Nov. 22, 1894 17,630.17

Total $84,906.79 The addition of the salary for the four years brings the sum'total of salary and perquisites drawn bythq presiding officer of this convention from the state of Indiana in a period ol four years to $99,906.79. The framer of these phrases about extravagance and waste has the distinction of having averaged In perquisites drawn from the pockets of the tax-payers of this state during the dark days of 1894, when thousands of Hooslers were fighting to keep the wolf from the door, $801.36 per day for a period of twentytwo days, and seventy dollars per working day for a period of four years. Under this same Democratic fee and •alary law the last Democratic state auditor drew in fees from the insurance department alone, in addition to his salary, $61,581.81. all of which •rent out of the stata treasury into the pookets of that official, and this gpeatleaan himself was one of the pranlmeat figures In ths convention fsotf

which haa emanated this eleventh hour declaration in behalf of the downtrodden tax-payer. The Republican legislature of 1895 wiped out the fee system as a private perquisite. If the Democratic fee and salary law of 1891 had not been displaced by such a measure, State Auditor Sherrick would have drawn in fees from the insurance department alone during the fiscal years ending Oct. 31, 1903, in addition to hie salary, $30,906.48—10 per cent of the collections in that department, which the Democratic fee and salary law provided should go to the state auditor. In his four years of service Auditor Sherrick would have derived personally from this department in fees, but for the Republican fee and salary law of 1895, $120,000. Secretary of State Storms would have derived under the law of 1891 last year in personal fees $13,759.88, or” more than $50,000 in his four years of service, instoafl Of this, however, every dollar of these fees goefl ilit? the treasury of the state of Indiana. Some Other “Issues.” It was the Republican party which wrote into the statutes of Indiana the principle of non-partisan control of the state’s penal and benevolent Institutions, and two Republican state administrations have established and maintained these institutions on sound business and humanitarian principles. Nearly half of these institutions today have Democratic superintendents. Three of the four superintendents of Indiana hospitals for the insane are the same men found in charge of these institution* when the Republican party •ame into power In the state nearly ten years ago. The law provides bipartisan boards for every state Insti-

tution in Indiana except one, and that board has been made bi-partisan by the voluntary act of Governor Durbin. Within the past three months a Democrat of established efficiency has been chosen superintendent of the Indiana Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth at Fort Wayne, and although this action was taken by a Republican board it was so much a matter of course that the incident attracted po special attention or comment. Within the same pe- , riod Governor Durbin has appointed to a Republican vacancy on the board of trustees of the Institution for the Education of the Deaf a prominent Democrat of demonstrated business and educational ability, making that board Democratic, and this has surprised no one. Yet Democratic leadership in Indiana is as active in denouncing a Republican administration for "prostituting these Institutions to partisan ends” as it was a few years ago in making party spoils of the hospitals for the lnsan*, a course in which some of the men now dominant in Indiana Demacrocy persisted until they raised a cry of righteous protest even from the Democratic state organ. The wide variance between the facts and the allegations makes no difference either to these partisans or their allies of the mugwump press, which seeks to discredit every official it cannot control. Republican leadership in Indiana courts investigation for every state institution within the confines of the commonwealth. The insincerity of the framers of the platform under consideration is shown by the declaration they make elsewhere to the effect that the board of state charities “has demonstrated Its value by making our penal and benevolent system a model that has attracted approval and imitation from other states.” Every member of that board is an appointee of the present state administration. Its service has been of great value to the state, but its function is purely an advisory one, so that the 'declaration of the to the effect that our penal and benevolent system has become a model is an unintentional tribute to those who have exercised the legislative and executive power necessary to effect such a consumma-. tion. The Peanut Planks. This weird platform contains some planks of Incomprehensible littleness. For instance, there is, the declaration that Governor Durbin Is responsible for the smallpox epidemic of 1903, and he is denounced for employing the "cheese-paring" methods which are so unpopular with gentlemen seized with an uncontrooable desire to follow the example of the presiding officer of this state convention and ram their arms up to the elbows in the public treasury. Three hundred bound copies of a railroad map of Indiana, provided for the governor as a member of the state tax board in accordance with longstanding custom are considered of sufficient Importance to receive attention in this platform, the price of these documents being multiplied by a hundred In an effort to dignify this specimen of , peanut politics. The Indianapolis I Sun, an independent newspaper, is moved by this "plank” to remark that it is a pretty high compliment to an , administration when nothing bigger than this can be singled out for denunciation in a state platform. There are some other features of this weird platfprm which will receive attention as the campaign progresses. The Republicans of Indiana are entirely willing to accept the challenge ofered in this platform by accentuating state issues, knowing as they do that the more thorough the examination of the comparative records of Democratic and Republican leadership In the management of state affairs, the more apparent it will become that in this campaign a vote for Republican state and legislative candidates Is a vote against the state debt.

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat gets a good deal into the proverbial nutshell when it says that back of Parker is Hill; back of Hill is Belmont, and back of Belmont are the Rothachilds, which is a#- far as the chain need ha e