Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-07-11
The Plunderers of the Treasury.
The Journal has the following in relation
to the schools of the State:

ne E3luMUcroES Oh Buc AECoSuEys
The Journal has the following in relation
to the schools of the State:
awe expended in Ohio last year for School
purposes the sum of three millions eight
hundred and seventy-eight thousand dol
lars. This amount will give some idea OF
the magnitude of our school system, and
the Importance of successful management
of its affairs. Men may neglect the well
fare of their children N many cases, but
| they seldom become careless of the man
agement of their financial interests, and
these figures will tend to draw the atten
tion of many to this subject, who are or
dinarily Indifferent to matters purely edu-
cational."
1t Is indeed time when this large sum OF
money (''three million eight hundred and
seventy-eight thousand dollars '') is ex-
pended In Ohio, in a single year, ostensibly
tor school purposes, for the people to make
enquiry about the distribution of this inn
mense amount.
Fortunately we are enabled to trace q
small amount-small In comparison to the
sum total-which has been taken without
leave from this school fluid, end devoted
to other purposes than that contemplated.
To make a show of paying off small
/
sioners of Ohio took seuenty. sic thousand fue
hundred and eiqhty-si1 dollars of the School
fund, and appropriated it to pay debt
contracted by them in 1865, and this
amount is charged, as expended in school,
ing the children of Ohio, and no doubt
makes part of the s3,s7sOOO, the Journal
brags was spent for that purpose.
The men who made the Constitution of
Ohio, did their best to prevent such tricks
had succeeded, when, in section 8 of Arti-
Gle IL of that instrument, they enacted
that:
mo tax shall be levied, except in pursu-
ance of law, and every law imposing 3 tax,
shall state, distinctly, the object of the
same, to ,ohich only IL shall apply"
But safeguards in a Constitution avail
but little with men who can swear to sup
port the supreme law of the State, and then
violate it at pleasure. And the Fund Com
missioners of Ohio, and the Legislature that
did their bidding, when they distracted
eight hundred thousand dollars from fund
sacred to the noblest charity, that of keep
ing the MANNED soldier and the wives and
children of those who fell in battle from
starving, added but little to their crime,
when, in like manner, they abstracted
seuenty-s sic thousand five hundred and eighty
sic dollars, from the fund reserved to school
the children of the State, and thus to give
the Journal editor chance to brag of the
millions spent for educational purposes.
During the two past sessions of the Leg
islature, a studied and determined effort
was made to abolish the Office of Comp
troller of the Treasury. This office was
created by the Democratic party, when in
power, to guard the Treasury from wrong
to prevent the Auditor of State from
drawing warrants OH the Treasury and the
State Treasurer from paying the same,
unless they were drawn for some lawful
purpose. The Auditor of State and the
Attorney General-both candidates for re-
election, as Commissioners of the Sinking
Fund-waylaid members and entreated
them to abolish this Office as useless, and as
casting a suspicion on themselves. And
the negro suffrage majority in the Legisla
ture, trained to do the bidding of its
leaders, as the spaniel obeys his master,
were prevented from thus laying the
Treasury of the State open to public
plunder by the exposure made by Demo-
ocrats of the contemplated rascality, and
to his credit, be it said, by member of the
dominant party-Colonel FRANK SAWYER,
of Huron.
In speech denouncing this cotemplated
outrage, Col. SAWYER said that if consum-
mated, and this safeguard of the Treasury
was destroyed by the Republican party,
and it should happen-an event he thought
not at all improbable-that another Treas
ury defalcation takes place, that party
would be sent into retirement as eternal
as their infamy merited. They would, in
their agony, call upon the rocks on the
mountains to fall upon them, and to bury
them from the sight of an abused and be-
trayed people. By the strenuous exertion
of Col. SAWYER, aided by few of the more
honest of his colleagues, and by the vote of
every Democratic member, the proposition
was defeated.
But we fear that the present Comptroller
of the Treasury, is not the watchful guar
dian the law intended him to be. He suffer
ed Auditor GOODMAN, Attorney General
WEST and Secretary of State SMITH, acting
as the Board of Fund Commissioners, to
take, without warrant of constitutional law,
eight hundred thousand dollars from tile
fund for the relief of INDECENT soldiers. their
wives and children, and over seventy-six
Thousand dollars of the fund to school the
children of the State, and hence, we are
led to the conviction, that, in incompetent
hands, the law creating the office of Comp
troller is failure.
The remedy is, however, in the hands of
the people. This Inefficient Comptroller,
and the Auditor, Attorney General and
State Treasurer, who use him for their
purposes, are all before the people this fall,
to pass upon their acts. The plunderers of
the School Fund, and of the widow and
the orphan and the disabled and crippled
soldier, must be driven from the Capitol
and honest and efficient men elected in their
places.
Candidate for Lieut.. Governor
Nominated.
After some travail and much i'll feeling
among those anxious, like 81. NJ" for mar
| tyrdom, JOHN G.. LEE, of Gen.-Wm.-H.-
Gibsons-town, in Seneca county, was placed
OH the Negro Suffrage ticket on yesterday,
as the candidate for suspended anima-
tion," ufce GALLOWAY, who wouldn't run.
Mr.. LEE, we understand, like Gen. Com
q, Drovot Rr;n GaparoI bnuy ba