Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-07-29
S4OO.742


We by no means intend to say that the above
are all the reductions that should be made.
They are some of the large items that can be
dispensed with altogether without detrment
to the general welfare, the only purpose for
which the legislature should impose taxation.
There are other reductions in salaries and
other directions which should be made
Newspaper and individual talk in general
terms about ECONOMY in the public expense"
is cheap. Talk is always cheap. Taxes in
our State for years have been enormously and
ruinously high. They must be reduced.
Prosperity in the State is at an end. 1t is
going backward in both population and
wealth. The pruning knife must be applied.
Not old twigs and branches must be cut off,
but whole great limbs must be Topped away.
Gentlemen of the press, You who have called
for reduction in taxation. point out now just
rhere the pruning knife and the saw shall be
applied. Leave your general denunciation of
extravaganza in appropriations and admins
tration, and come down to specifics. The
people demand and must have a very large
reduction in their taxes. Where shall these
reductions be made? Prating about a few
dollars of expenditures for penknivcs and
stationery for members of the legislature may
answer for blind to induce the people to be-
lieve that you are in favor of allcviating their
burdens; but that does not take off their load.
The bigger items of expenditure must he
struck at, if relief is to be had.
The result in this case proved that the
talk of the greenback organs and speak
ers WAS cheap. Here was a.saving ofS4O0,-
ZAP which the Commercial said must and
could and should be made Was it made !?
Not at all. The democratic greenback
papers try to show that something was
saved, but it is terribly hard thing for
them to do. The actual reduction in APP
preparations for 1879 over 1873 was $685.
79l .33, and of this there was S2l sos less
appropriated for debt and interest than the
previous year, $40, 1897 less for school pur-
poses, Sl4, 1863 less for salaries and expen-
SEES of officers and clerks and pay-rolls,
$4,000 less for Agricultural College, So
1903 less for Insane Hospital. State Prison
and Reform School, S3,764 less for Fish
Commissioner and propagation of fish,
S6,797, Railroad taxes. Taking out of the
above sum $57 900 which were reductions
from causes entirely independent of any
control of the last Legislature we have a
saving of some S36 900, as the net result
of all the talk of the greenbackers last
year about cutting down expenditures.
The voters of Maine can look at the
promise of retrenchment III the figures
from the Bangor Commercial, amounting
to the sum of s400, ZAP, and then they may
look at $50, 900 as the sum total saved. and
consider whether party that promises so
much and does so little is worthy of sup
port All the saving in salaries that was
made was due to the fact that resumption
had made the greenback dollar in which
the salaries were paid as good as gold.
and thus officials were able to live upon a
less sum than before. 1t was really the
republican policy of resumption which
brought about the cut-down, and not the
honesty, or economy of the loud-mouthed
Browns. Pickards and Perrys of the legis-
lature
Miss sawyer's Salye now prepared is the best
.I..04