Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-04-13
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WEDNESDAY EvEN'o. APRIL ls. 1881.
The Attorney Generals Fees.

Attorney General Palmer replies to the
Legislatures inquiry as to the moneys
he has collected and the fees he has re-
tained, in a specific statement which
shows that he has pocketed to date
twenty-one thousand dollars as his COM
pensation. The laws allow the attorney
general to retain fees each year to the
amount of seven thousand dollars. Mr..
Palmer has been in service little over
two years and is already paid for three !;
and yet he has not taken anything he
was not entitled to. This somewhat
curious result springs from the fact that
the first year for which he was entitled
to charge his annual compensation ended
after he had been in Office seven months.
For these seven months he took his
seven thousand dollars, and he had a right
to do 80 because the commission Oh
the sums collected by him exceeded
that amount, and the attorney general is
only required to pay these commissions
annually to the state after they have
yielded him seven thousand dollars so
that really he may earn his whole COM
pensation for each year in the first few
days, or weeks or month of it il the
magnitude of his collections on the first
day will yield him seven thousand dol
lars, he is entitled to take it. And so it
has happened that already in the first
twenty days of the third year Of his term
the attorney general received his full
compensation for the year. He works
in one sense during the remainder OF it
for nothing; for he might resign to-day
and still lawfully keep what he has
received. He has earned it already under
the law. This can hardly be disputed. He
isallowed first to deduct his commissions
and the state comes in only for any bal
ance that may he left. 1t might per-
haps be considered little shabby for the
attorney general to resign just because
he has got all he can out OF his Office for
the year. But if he wants to resign for
any other reason there is nothing i'll law
or decency to prevent him. The new man
may come in and earn his seven thousand
dollars in a few months again, and then
also resign and a third and a fourth
successor may reap the full! annual sal
ary of the Office before the year is out
Such is the law; and it is not one TO
grOwl about either. It is not to be sup
posed that the class of men who become
Pennsylvania attorney generals will
play shuttlecOck with the Office for the
sake of an easy earning of seven thou
sand dollars and if they did, and half
q dozen of them should earn that much
apiece in year, the state would still get
full value out of the energetic prosecI-
tiOn of her claims that the earnings of
such commissions would indicate.
In the case of Attorney General Pal.
mer, the legislative committee that went
out wOOling GEMS to have come home
. wv ~ - ""',l." la0islatures
that are of an investigating turn 61
mind, but when their ardor against
AN officer is inspired by malice because
of his previous raid against their steal.
ing propensity, We cannot extend 10
them the heartiest sympathy, or feel it
in any way incumbent upon us to re-
frain from mOcking them when they
finally succeed in showing their ears.