Los Angeles herald., 1890-04-02
THE COUNTY FUNDS.


1t is something in which the party
everywhere excels. No matter where
the party is found in power, there its
distinctive talent at once makes itself
felt. 1t may be in Maine or California,
it may be in Washington or Sacramento,
it may be in San Francisco or Los An
geles no matter where or in what
capacity, any body with good Repub-
lican majority has an opportunity to
show it's hand, and it will show it to
some purpose.
When Mr. Cleveland and his Cabinet
and Democratic Congress stood aghast at
the surplus in the Treasury and the ever
growing proportions of these heaped-up
moneys withdrawn from the channels of
trade, every Republican in the country,
from that expert political manipulation,
Mr.. Blaine, through the strata where
political weather-cocks like Mr.. Fitch,
the silver-tongued crate, and SO on down
to the lowest stratum where the most
callow tyro Of a hungry ward-striker is
discovered 'at home," the cry was all
the same in marvellous unison and har-
mony: "We can show you what to do
with surplus"
They were all right. They can always
show you what to do with
surplus. Even Corporal Tanner,
who lost nearly all of himself
on the battlefelds of his country, ex-
cepting his lungs, preserved that part of
his anatomy which taught him how to
deal with the surplus. Its proportions
did not trouble him. He would not
have quailed before it had it been ten
times as large. He could have got away
with it all.
This talent of Republican body to
spend taxpayers money never forsakes
the party under any circumstances. 1t
seems to be matter OF inheritance and
to come by intuition without any need
of the tedious science of political
economy to deduce dry principles from.
They get along well enough with no
principles of any kind in dealing with
a surplus. They can convert any sur
plus into a deficit in the twinkling
of an eye, No matter how
large the pile Of coin is, the Republican
statesman, or even ward politician
valiantly, heroically attacks it and
makes it fly.
Behold the county funds of Los An
geles county! 1t is but the other
day that the taxpayers began pour
ing in continuous stream, broad and
deep, into the Collectors office They
piled up cash there to the tune OF about
a million and a quarter by the last day
of the year 1889. All could not reach
the desk that year to pay, 80 the stream
kept flowing in until the end of January
February came and went, and still the
money kept piling up. At last the de-
linquent property was sold for those
who could not pay, or who thought the
cheapest way out of long difficulty
would be to give rapacious Republican
county their property at once, and not
be bothered doing it peacemeal in say
three or four years. In all there was
paid in a gross sum of nearly million
and half by the taxpayers of this
little county.
The tax sales have but Just been
closed. Tie Collector has yet had
time to settle with the Treasurer, but
has some $4,000 Of the taxes still in
hand. So the fiscal year is merely we'll
begun. One would suppose the Treas
urer's vaults were simply bursting out
with the great store of coin, and that all
the funds were plethoric of resources.
Deluded taxpayer do not make mis-
take. The Board of Supervisors is Re-
publican. They have been exercising
their talent, peculiar to their party, to
some purpose. No surplus confronts
the county board, albeit the fiscal year
is but we'll begun. t5
Two of the funds in which the people
are most interested are the current ex
pense fund and the general road fund.
The former gets twenty-five one hundred
and eightieths of all the taxes raised in
the county, and the latter gets thirty
one hundred and eightieths. The drafts
on the current expense fund for jury
fees and one thing or another run at
$4,000 to $4,000 month. The drafts
on the general road fund run unequally.
Last month they ran at about S6, 400, and
in February at about $500. The de-
mand on this last fund will be enormous
this spring, for all the bridges are out or
badly crippled, and the roads are in
terrible condition, much worse even
than usual, and that is saying a great
deal as any one knows who is at all
acquainted with them under normal con-
ditions.
Well, here at the very threshold of the
fiscal year there are in the road fund, or
there were at the close of business last
Monday, $3,724.20, and in the current
expense fund there were $8,026.22. Here
is less than the demands for half of April
will come to! There are, to be sure,
$10S,00 still to distribute, of which the
current expense fund will get $4,000, or
enough to carry the county until near
the end of May, while the road fund will
get little more-sufficient to put in a
bridge or two, but utterly inadequate to