The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-10-29

didates shall | cast my ballot, to besi
subserve the interests of the comon
people, the taxpayers?
This question will naturally arise
in the minds of conscientious, indie
pendent voters. 70 most people il
matters very little who hold the
offices, the question that particularly
concerns them is, which party will
look most carefully to the best in
terests of the people?
We can only judge what parties
will do, and what candidates will do
by what they have already done
and if we wish to know who are like
ly to most carefully guard the inter-
ests of this county,. we NAV study
the recc y 81 the Two parties siu
the cour y org IMITATION. with pro-
The Offices in the county have bee
about evenly divided. In the Or
two session after its Organization, tha
county was represented IN the Legi9
lature b. ed
two sessions By Republicans. When
Represented by Democrats gha it
will be ambered were ia accord
with the Il. r.ty jn the Jegisls-
ture," we had no IL law nj were
governed by the laws Vi .Allegauy
county, enacted at the close of the
war, when the salaries Of county
officials were made to correspond
with the prevailing high prices of the
period. Garrett county could not
well afford to pay these high salaries
but our Democratic representatives
did nothing to reduce county expen
ditures, and in fact they do not seem
to have done anything, in particular.
We never heard of an effort of
theirs to reduce county expenditures
in any way whatever. They prob
ably expected to retain the control of
the county, and in that case they did
not want salaries reduced. But dur
ing the last session weWere so repre-
sented an assessment Act was passed !;
and let US see how the party of prom
ises performed its work. We may
fairly conclude that Mr.. Getty and
his associats are responsible for the
manner in which the assessment was
conducted.
The allotted time for it's compile
ton was consumed, and had to be
extended, we can't tell how many
times but the whole summer and
fall were hardly sufficient Tor two
boards of assessors, and a board Of
control and review to get over the
county ; and when the bill had to be
finally footed, almost five thousand
dollars of the taxpayers hard earned
money went into the capacious peck
cts of these economic ~ Democratic
officials. And here the curtain falls
on the last act of Democratic economy
and efficiency in this county, but the
consequences have been dragging
their Slow length along ever since.
When the work of the assessors
was supposed to have been done, and
had been paid for, it was discovered
after the lapse of year or two, that
1900 military lots, or 60, 500 acres of
land, besides almost as much in tracts
and surveys, had escaped their atten-
ton entirely. We never heard any
explanation of this but probably they
had not time enough.
Some property had been assessed
two or three times, and a great deal
had not been assessed at all, and ow-
ing to this outrageously bungling
business, the books of the county be-
came SO confusing, that the last board
of county commissioners were under
the necessity Of employing legal aid
to assist in unraveling their myster-
les, so as to enable them to form some
idea of the real financial condition of
the county.
Here the county lost in the first
place say $4,000 over charged for the
work of assessing. In the second
place she lost by bungling incapacity
or willful neglect the tax on $4,000 to
100000 acres of land, and in addition
to that there has been constant
drain of hundreds of dollars annually,
in counsels fees and incidental ex-
penses, all because the work of assess
ing was performed in accordance with
Democratic methods.
AS proof that this exposition OF
Democratic wastefulness or cupidity,
is not over drawn it is only necess airy
to refer to the books at Cumberland,
which show that, in the flush times oil
1866, when it cost a great deal of money
to do any sort of business, the almost
entire territory ofGarrett county was
assessed by Mr.. Samuel w. Friend
and his associates for less than 81, 800
this sum covered the cost of the as.
sessment and also of the work OF
review.