The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1875-10-09
The Necessity for Change in the Board
of County Commissioners.


In sight of the fostering mass of corrup-
ton which the Ring rode Democracy have
covered the State with, statements of which
have filled our columns week after week,
without having more than disturbed the
surface, the affairs of our own county have
been overlooked. They are not of the
cleanest and most tidy kind. A boast is
made of the reduction of taxes, but this is
an old dodge resorted to by every Board of
County Commissioners in their last year.
A deficiency is sure to be the result which
has to be made up in the next levy. The
levy for school purposes was cut down, and
The Commissioners of Public Schools did
not care to place such stone at the feet of
the candidates of the party this Fall, and
concluded to shove the omitted term over
to next year when no county or State Off
GERS would be to elect. We gave figures in
former issue from the report of the School
Commissioners, showing that $15, 1000 of
the school tax remained in the hands of the
collectors at the date of that report, run
ming back to 1868.
The Aims House is sinecure, farmed
out to party favorites, without any regard
to the public interest. No statement of the
proceeds from the farm is ever published.
The public is kept entirely ignorant of the
condition of that institution, except that
an appropriation of some $4,000 is levied
annually for its support. The Trustees
visit the place monthly and enjoy good
dinner, and pass each others accounts for
articles and produce furnished the institu-
| ton. In place of publishing proposals for
| produce to be furnished by the lowest bid
ders, and throwing the competition open
to the world, the Trustees use the estab-
lishment as market for their own benefit,
and the public are shut out from all knowl-
edge of its condition. Its Truste2 furnish
the supplies and audit and pay their bills
out of the county funds. There is no bal
ance sheet published to show any thing
about the expenditures of the revenue of
the county. The clerk of the County Com
missioners received a per centage for count
ing the money that goes through his hands,
but what that per centage is or what it
amounts to "no fellow can find OUT
1t is reported that the Commissions have
amounted to several thousand dollars in a
year.
Without charging mismanagement or
"irregularity in the Office, there is a
growing desire on the part Of the public
in these days of investigating committees
that the Commissioners office should
have thorough overhauling, and an an
nual balance sheet published along with
the levy. This will never be done if the
taxpayers continue year after year to elect
Commissioners taken only from the Demo-
crat party. That party has too much at
stake to hazard such an unwilling to the
public.
If they send Kitchener, Strickland and
Clayton to look after the Office for the next
two years it will be investigated. The office
is not invested with political or party prin-
ciple, but is purely a matter of taxes to the
property holders, and there is no divided
opinion as to the ability of the men on the
two tickets who are in nomination for
| County Commissioners. In that respect
the three men on the Republican ticket are
head and shoulders above their eppen.
ents, and if elected, will turn over new
leaf in the management of the affairs OF
the Office. A reform is greatly needed, and
that is the way to bring it about; and we
may add the only way.