Emmons County record. [volume] (Williamsport, D.T. [i.e. N.D.]) 1884-current, 1889-02-08
Who Stole the BridRe1

Like every community, the Williams
port country has three or four "irreconcil-
ables men who grumble at anything
and everything good, bad and ind,ffer-
ent--done by their fellow citizens in Of
fee, whose elevation has provoked their
spleen and jealousy. To hear these men
talk one would suppose the people of this
county were fools and sought to put in
office the worst men they could find. In
stead of making specific charges and Of
ferng proof--the only way by which
they can hope to attract the attention of
fair minded and honorable people--they
prate Of gangs aud cliqucs, and seek to
create the impression that they are the
only ones good, and beautiful, and true.
Their influence, happily, 1s nil with those
who know them, and the little injury
they do ls with strangers. They are
prompted wholly by jealousy and inborn
malice and the assassination of official
character is their chief delight.
w.
One of this class--a sour visaged and
contemplate creature, despised by every
one but the few like him--visited the
county building the other day to pay his
taxes. His heart was bad, as the red men
say, and, as usual, he opened out on
everybody in general. he prated of rings
and cliqnes and vcnality; yet not one spe-
cific and direct charge did he make. Not
word did be say of the conditions which
make taxes high in every new country
territorial expenditures necessarily largely
in excess, per capita of population, to
what they are in the old states, or to what
they will be when Dakota obtains, after
admission. a revenue from her school
lands; roads and bridges built in all d.
rections to make travel possible at certain
seasons: an unfortunate complication
regarding railroad lands by which large
sum in taxes was lost; an unusual pro-
portion of murder trials petty though
costly cases in justice courts numerous
schoolhouses voted by the people, with
teachers salaries, and the many necessary
expenses which make the cost to each in.
dividual larger iu q new country than in
one thickly settled. He forgot also to
state that by the last treasurer's report it
was shown that if all taxes assessed could
have been collected the county's assets
would now more than equal her liabilities.
Not suggestion did he make as to how
he would have the methods of county
government improved--simply sweeping
charge of general crookedness.
And what makes this man inslnuatious
and lnt'mations particularly outrageous
is the fact that it is only through the for
bearance of the county board that he is
not now behind the bars. On the testi-
mony of several credible witnesses 1t can
be shown that last fall he stole material
from a county brldge--a bridge which
had been built with the money of the
taxpayers of this county, and which it
will take tax money to replace
Isn't he "a bird7'
**#
All of which leads us to the reflection
that it seems the rule rather than the ex.
ception that thuse who loudest proclaim
their goodness from the housetops,
and who want to regulate every thing and
everybody by their own prejudices, are
usually the ones who first startle the com.
munity, and that the individual who
howls continually against tho probity Of
every citizen who happens to hold Office,
while himself posing as the holiest of the
holy, is the one IN whose presence 1t is
the part of wisdom and prudence to es.
tabllSh O desperate grin on vollr wallet. Is