The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1883-02-17
GOV. BATES MESSAGE.

We give below some of the main
points in Gov. Bates message, read
before the legislature last week. The
document is too long for our columns,
hence we cannot give it in full. The
governor leads off by saying:
The auspices under which you have
met as legislators are hopeful, yet
gravely embarrassing, because, among
other things, of the state debt ques.
ton with which you are to grapple.
This embarrassment has been increas-
ed, since your assembling, by the Of
fetal defalcation of Treasurer M. T.
Polk to the extent, according to the
report of an investigating committee,
of 1888, 900, which together with the
payment of S120, 900, as interest on
the bonds so recently funded under
the law known as the 1905 Act" has
left us with a comparatively empty
treasusy. Tennessee is EN- barrassed
by all enormous debt, and her people
are poor. The past is full of finan.
cial error that will require time and
wise legislation to correct. You and
l knew, when elected to our respec-
tive places, that our task was difficult
and our trust delicate. We have as
sumed the duty in good faith, and we
must perform it with unwavering f
deity. We owe to Tennessee, in this
her hour of troubles, our full ener.
gies and best efforts to relieve her
honorably aud justly, if we can. That
her good name has been traduced and
her credit affected is true. But those
who understand the history of our
situation-the antecedents and imme-
date surroundings-the motive which
actuated her people. and their efforts
to accomplish that which is just and
right-have no word of unkind criti-
cism for us. Regardless of what may
be said by those, and their satellites,
who have been preying on our misfor,
tunes for their scionable advantage,
let us be equal to the occasion and do
justice alike to taxpayers and credit.
ors i'll executing the peoples will, by
paying all that we believe we Justly
owe. and e9uitably adjusting that in
dispute. This kind of record will
turn SANDER into shame and defy the
crucial test of time.
After briefly relating the five acts
intended to fund the Indebtedness. nc
one of which, he says, "seems to have
grown out of an expression of the
will of the people, or was acqulesceC
in by them after passage" he contin
ues:
THE PEOPLES PROPOSITION.
The people of Tennessee seeing
constant and systematic efforts e
foist upon them laws touching tn,
state Indebtedness that were unius
and dlstasteful and having witnessed
with regret and modification tn
schemes and practices of corrup
spectators and lobbyists. as the,
heartlessly preyed upon the cripple,
credit of the State, took the matte
in their own hands, as they ought an,
had right to do, and for the frs
time have expressed their will lhroug
the ballot box, on the 7th of last No
, vember, to tender terms of settle
, ment Of our Indebtedness to the cred
itors of the state, which, under all Oh
circumstances, every disinterested an
right thinking man must regard a
just and honorably to all parties con
cerned.
; Then follows long treatise upo
} the various kinds of bond that 90
, make up the debt. As to the del
) proper he says:
The first nine classes of bonds emf
merated by the act of 1879, aggregs
ting 50, 1l8,000 constituted the stat
: debt proper of Tennessee. These al
lucrative statements have never bee
officially modified or questioned; the