Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-04-27

c2gY o! /. being based upon the a4e
strong ground of the proposed reduc-
ton OF the fees ard salaries of county
officers. In doing 90 made myself SO
odious that the county officers of my
almost unanimously voted
against my election to the Legislature.
In the Sixty-first General Assembly l
voted for the Van Meter Bill, which
was based upon the same principles as
the present Beatty Bill, and l believed
at the time that it carried out the true
theory of the reduction in fees and sal
aries; but in the end the Oren Bill had
to be accepted, or else nothing would
have passed the Legislature. l was q
member of the conference committee
on the part of the House that finally
agreed to the Oren Bill. The Senate.
you may remember, had adopted sub
stitute known as the Ferrel Bill, and
was determined that it should become
law. The House utterly refused to
concur in the Ferrel Bill, and, after a
great deal of persuasion, and the repre-
sentation made by me and other MEM
bers of the House committee to the
Senate Committee, that unless they
accepted the Oren Bill we could get
nothing, the Oren Bill was finally
agreed to, and passed. The principle
of the Oreu Bill was this:
1t provided that fees should be taxed
by Sheriffs, Probate Judges and Clerks
of the Court, and that they might col
lect these fees up to a certain amount of
money, whicn was graded in proper
tion to the size of the county, without
70 M IF
that should be done in the county.
The effect of the law was, that Cham
paign County might have twenty suits
to one in Noble County, and yet the
Clerk of the Court, the Sheriff and the
Probate in Noble County would be paid
just as much as the similar officers of
Champaign County, il the population
of the two counties happened to be
equal. The result was, that in many
of the counties the Sheriffs, during the
first quarter of the year, actually paid
out more money for deputies, horses
and Office expenses than their whole
quarters salary amounted to.
The bill provided one of the most in
sidious means of corrupting the people
of the State that has ever been embod-
led in the form of law. 1t provided
that those officers who receive fees
should first collect the amount of mon
ey that was coming to them AS their
quarters salary; after that, whatever
they should collect with the exception
Of small commission to them, should
be paid into the county treasury. The
bill did not reduce the fees charged to
litigants in the Courts, but kept up the
price of the administration of justice to
the highest war rates and if there was
any balance collected after paying the
county officers, it went to the benefit
of the taxpayers of the county who had
no litigation at all. Now, it will be seen
that there was an inducement for those
county officers who desired re-elec-
ton, to first collect the amount of mon
ey due them, and then subsidiZe the
voters of the county who owed fees, by
allowing the balance to remain uncol-
lected. The County Auditors were paid
salaries under this law out of the coun-
ty treasury, and in nearly all the small
counties their salaries were materially
increased above the highest rates ever
paid during the war. During the first
quarter of 1876, so far as we had re-
ports, not one dollar was paid into the
county treasures by any one of the
county officers in the State.
Such thing might have been done,
but have never heard of it. The
Clerks, Probate Judges and Sheriffs of
the smaller counties of the State were
working without any prospect of ade-
quate compensation. They had taken
their offices last fall, it is true, and had
constructive notice of the coming into
operation of the Oren Law, but not one
in hundred of them had an intelligent
idea of the effect of the law.
An. Beatty had given the subject of
fees and salaries good deal of study
while member of the House, the pre-
vious session, and had introduced a
believe, to have been vastly better than
the Oren Bill. In the present Legis-
lature, Mr.. Beatty introduced in the
Senate, early in the season, the bill
which has since become a law. The
object of this bill is to reduce the fees
charged by county officers, and hence
necessarily diminish the cost of the ad-
ministration of county Offices. The
reduction OF the fees of Clerks, Sheriffs
and Probate Judges can not be less in
the aggregate than twenty per cent. On
the fees charged under the Oren Bill.
1t proposes an entire change of princi-
pie. 1t lessons the fees to be taxed, so
that persons having business to tran
sact in the Courts and county offices
are charged less than they were before.
No one is damaged by the bill, for /
bave shown you that the public get no
benefit from the Oren Bill. If the peO-
pie of the State had received benefit
from it, it would have been of that sort
which is against public money, and
which nobody could justify as prin-
ciple.
Just exactly what the details Of the
reduction of the Beatty Bill are I can
not now state, but 1 know that when
the bill came to the House, Mr.. Ogls-
wee, of Clark County, who was a vio-
lent opponent of the bill, succeeded in
|engrafting large number of salutary
judgment, rendered the bill much more
satisfactory, and certainly aided great
ly in securing its passage by the House.
One thing | want to mention is this ::
Under the Oren Bill every county Off
Ger who administers an oath was com.
PEELED under pains and penalties to
charge every wounded, crippled SOL
dier and every widowed pensioner full
price for administering osths in rela
ton to their pensions, &C., and the
money so secured went to swell the
aggregate of their compensation. Un-
der the Beatty Bill these officers are
positively prohibited from making any
such charge, and the fees of the county
officers are defined and may be clearly
understood, so there can be no con-
structive fees taxed, and no duplication
of index charges. The bill simplifies
the whole system of fees, and puts the
knowledge of existing statutes plainly
before the parties most tinterested-that
is to say, the parties who pay the fees.