Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-21
RUTAN'S REFORMS.
He Rakes the State Admins
tratiOn Fore and Aft
FROMTHE GOVERNOR DOWN
Charges of Waste and Theft Made
Against officials
THAT SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED.
The Senator's illness Kept Him From
Making Things Lively.
FROMTHE GOVERNOR DOWN
THAT SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED.
A BLOW AT BEAVERS MILITARY PRIDE

State Senator J. S. Rutan is recovering
his health slowly. A DISPATCH reporter
called upon him last evening. The Senator
is suffering from a severe attack of rheu-
matism, and he experiences considerable
pain in his arms and shoulders. DR.. Flem-
ing assures him that his chances of recovery
are very good, and the Senator also feels
that, though he has been sick man all win
ter he is growing stronger every day
His old friend, Senator Quay, is anxious
to have him go back to the springs at Carls-
bad, in Bohemia, and take another course
of treatment; but Mr.. Rutan does not care
to go. He says he has been in Europe five
times and he would rather remain at home.
The doctor has forbidden him to excite
himself; but the Senator is a very genial
man and likes to talk. Unknown to the
physician his friends have been calling on
him frequently, and he enjoys their COM
pany.
The Senator was anxious te set at rest
certain political rumors about himself, as
well as to speak of some of the things he
intended to do the past winter if he had not
been taken i'll.
JUST WHAT HE WANTS.
Senator Quay has written to him often to
say that he could have any Office he wanted
that Quay could get; but Senator
Rutan saws he doesn't want the posi-
tions. His only desire is to be
reelected to the State Senate because there
are two United States Senators to be voted
for. The Commissionership of Customs was
offered him, but the salary is not large
enough to pay him, and he has no desire to
live in Washington. He could have had,
also, the Collectorship of the Port in Pitts
burg, but he doesn't want it.
"NoE,% said the Senator, having made
these general statements, II wish to show
how $3.50, 900, at least of the States funds
are wasted or stolen, every year. If I
hadn't been sick this winter, there are
number of evils would have had investi-
gated. intended to begin with the loss of
the revenue bill, two years ago. Not long
ago Governor Beaver boasted, so 1 am told,
that he would have vetoed that bill any
how, even If the President of the Senate had
signed it. At the opening of the ses-
sion my plan was to introduce
resolution by which all the appropriation
bills should be returned to the Senate from
the Governor 13 days before the session
closed, so that vetoed bills could have been
passed over his head, if Unnecessary. As it is,
the Senate is at the mercy of the Governor,
and he can dictate as he pleases.
81 am positive the Governor was respon-
.5b1s for he fo;I IF Xba kill Tho
very fact that he discharged his own clerk
who should have attended to it, six months
afterward, indicates that
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
''It is strange, too, that such an important
bill should lie on the Governors table for
ten days before it was discovered. The
Governor excuses himself by saying that he
was busy examining into the merits of ap-
preparation bills that he began to veto as
soon as he found out the Revenue bill would
not become a law. In fact, he cut off Isl ,0OO,-
600 in appropriations because the bill had
failed. He reduced the appropriation for
the Allegheny Home for Colored Children
$500; cut of $25,00O for the Allegheny
Hospital, and, in similar manner, shaved
down the money that should have gone to
support insane asylums, hospitals, schools,
ETC., throughout the State At the
Agricultural College, near Bellefonte,
(his own school), S112, 900. An expert edu,
Gator told me that boys could be educated
in Germany or al Edinburgh for less money
than the State pays to this school.
''The secret Of the Governors activity in
cutting down the legitimate appropriations
to charitable institutions in the State
is his great anxiety to pay more
of the State debt than Pattison did. The
law requires that $3.50, 900 is to be paid on
the debt every year; but Beaver has already
paid 81, 200, 600. while the hospitals, etc.,
have had to suffer. The moneys in the
sinking fund and the annual revenues are
sufficient to pay off the debt in a short time.
without resorting to such a policy of cut
ting appropriations. Continuing, Senator
Rutan said:
DRAWING COMPARISONS.
L must say that Governor Pattison was
an honest man, and he gave the
people a clean administration. He
and his private Secretary did all the work in
his office, which Governor Beaver has six
clerks attend to for him. In fact it didn't
take me long to discover that
the State is paying some clerks, who never do
anything but draw their salaries. There are
lot of them kept on the rolls, and the number
is increasing every year. There is one in the
Internal Revenue Department who boasts that
he dOesn do a tap of work, and yet it
was not long ago that they tried to
have two more clerks appointed to collect sta
tist1cs. protested, and the two clerks never
got the positions.
But it is surprising how many employees there
are about the Senate and House. drawing
salaries for doing nothing. find they are the
particular friends of Senators and members and
in one instance l was surprised to find that
one influential representative, who Thought
was an honest man, had secured his son one of
these perfunctory positions. and he was draw
ing his pay right along, as large life and rem
dering no work IN return for it.
Toward the close of the Legislature the Sen
ators and members work into the General Ap-
preparation bill cunningly devised provisions
20 pay for these useless clerkships One of the
charges made against Sam Losch was that he
distributed $4,000 Of a contingent fund among
these pets.
know Russell Errett is too honest to do any,
thing of that kind, and 81 posted
Chief Clerk Morrison to look out for snakes
on his side of the House. These people know
that plan can't be worked this time and 1 am
interested to know how they will manage it
now to provide for their friends.
HEADED HIM OFF.
When Governor Beaver found out that I
was hunting up the contracts he signed to have
S25, 900 spent on the Executive Mansion, max
ing a veritable palace out of it, before the
money was appropriated for the purpose he
referred to it in bis message to head me off,
and explained that he had done it thought
lessly; yet other bills of more Importance were
vetoed without mercy:
Another evil would like TO see corrected is
This thing of spending money to keep up a
standing army in the State Beaver and
Hastings are soldiers, and there is nothing that
ride at the head of the Pennsyl.