The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-03-30
Township Populations.


Township Peculations.
The exposition of the spoils system, prac-
ticed in the administration of our township
affairs made in yesterdays Journal, caused
a deep sensation among the voters. 1t was
difficult for the public to credit the facts; to
believe that man who had SO loudly in
sisted upon the most rigid economy in the
municipal expenditures-who is candidate
for Mayor on platform for reducing the
costs of the city government--could be pri-
vately putting the townships money into
his purse without the authority of the law;
that an honest German Republican, can
didate for an Office that gave him the custo-
dy of the citys revenues, was colluding and
sharing in practices that has brought
blush to the cheeks of his friends; that the
dispensator of justice between man and
man-one chosen to visit the penalties of
the law upon all sorts of roguery-the
magistrate who was daily sending the weak
and tempted to prison for petty acts of filch-
ing, was putting his own hand into the
public treasury and taking therefrom S1,327
without the Knowledge and sanction of the
owners of the money, and without any au--
thority of the law that one who was before
his fellow-citizens, asking them to give him
the entire custody of its treasury and an
irresponsible discretionary power over the
affairs of the township, was conniving at,
and sharing in, the perversion of funds ex-
tracted from the hard earned wages Of the
laborer by the inexorable tax gatherer
The excitement was intense only because
the acts were Immediately under our eyes,
and we felt the hand that was abstraeting
its contents in our pocket. But the dis
oovery only exhibits the ramifcations of
system, in its lowest extremities, that pre-
walls from the United States Treasury down
through State and County Treasures to the
smallest fiscal Office in the gift of the people,
The Walkers, Sharpe's and Kramer's, in
minor positions, are but the humble imita-
tors of the Brights, Wizards, and imperial
spoilmen, who have become millonaires in
larger public trusts.
There is talk of suits to make the pecula-
tors disgorge if that be the course adopted,
let the work be thorough. If it be COM
menced in the township treasury, let it be
carried through every Office in the county,
aud in the State let US institute REFORM
PARTY, whose leading object shall be
thorough and searching reform in the dis
charge of all public trusts, or at least in the
administration of the public finances. If
the current of dishonesty cannot be arrested
our industrial energies will soon be paral-
lied by the incubus of taxation, and our
material prosperity will be eaten up by a
swarm of greedy public peculators; while
our free institutions will sink in the food of
public decentralization that threatens TO
overwhelming us.
In the township administration, the ex-
animation extends from JAN, 1858. What
iniquitieS the records may contain beyond
that period, is matter for surmises only. There
is in the record already explored, enough to
show practiced and experienced hand in
the mode of multiplying compensations for
the one service. In November, the Trustees
pay their own salaries,in advance, up to the
April succeeding; in the mean time, the
chief duty rendered was a settlement Of the
Treasurer's account; that was to see that
each one had got his fair share for himself
For this dsinterested service, each one
makes an ezra charge and pays himself So
out of the township fund. The salary, we
preiume, was taken for the burthen of wear
ing the title Of Township Trustee :" the
labor performed was to be paid for as extra
service. Mr.. Kramer, who superintendent
bridges, took jobs on them, made his own
profits and audited his own bills James T
Walker, who, as Justice spreads his iuris-
diction over all the provinces in law belong
ing to the Supreme, Circait, and District
Courts of the United States, and from the
Supreme Court of the State down to his
. humble functions, and who as an executiy,
officer, absorbs within himself the authority
and,etnoluments of the township, has an ex
traordinarilg inventive genius in making
charges. Give him the custody of the ma
tional finances for twelve months ans
Jacob Astor would be a paupeT, in compar
ing riches with him.