Morning journal and courier., 1891-11-30
COMMUNICA TIONS.
Fat Official Salaries.

To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 The fat pay of the assessors of public and private property in this city furnishes a very fruitful theme for discussion, and not without reason. The great majority of our citizens cannot see any justice in doubling up the salaries of city officials when the wages of skilled workmen in all branches show a tendency in the opposite direction. There are many mechanics in our factories-men of brains, if you please, who are eminently capable of fill ing any of these fat public positions-who now are taught to consider, per force of circumstances, that stipend ranging all the way from S2 to s per day is generous pay. So far as political "pulls" are con cerned these men are ''not in it," to use a slang expression, partly because of having no ambitions to gratify ip that direction, partly because they have no money to spend in purchasing an official position, provided there was no lack of ambitious impulses. We are told by those who profess to know that man who aspires for the office of an assessor must expend all the way from S20O to $500 ill order to gain that position, hence his pay as assessor should be sufficiently large to meet these, 'campaign" expenses. We fail to see any propriety, any justice in the claim. If man buys a ticket in the Louisiana State lottery and draws only blank is it to be supposed that his friends will be required to make up his lossl If 8 man runs any great risk for the attainment of wealth and position does the public stand pledged to pay him for taking that risk! So. if a man is ambitious to be an assessor Of property, and spends several hundred dol lars out of his own savings, and fails to get the position, he is in precisely the same condition as the man who draws the lot tery blank-so much out of pocket from running the risk. An, but should he be so fortunate as to gain the office, say | the advocates of high salaries, then the public should make good all the expenses | incurred in the great personal effort that ended so much in his favor. In other | words, it is the fortunate person, and not | the one who suffers both pecuniary loss | and mental disappointment who should be helped. Ye gods, what an argument!
 What justice and reason, then, in in | creasing official salaries that are already ! large enough, and thereby putting larger | burdens, in the way of increased taxation, on those who are already sufficiently | taxed Here, for instance, is a skilled | mechanic who is earning, say, s per day, | and who is trying to reduce the mortgage on the little place he is striving to call his | own in the true sense of the term. Brains being equal, on what plea of reason and l justice should the skilled mechanic who labors hard ten hours per day to earn s be doubly taxed in order to pay the man who assesses his property at the rate ot nearly S7 per day of less number oi ! hours!
 We claim that these official salaries | should not be so greatly in excess of labor | performed and benefits received as to cause
 so much of strife in the seeking, of public | positions The bigger the plum the great
 CT the scramble and the more corrupt
 measures resorted to in getting it. In or
 der to get set up for and elected to a pub lie office you must first "set up" the crowo
 per force of fashion, and this involves con
 siderable ''skirmishing" and 'hustling,
 great self-abasement in the way of catering
 to the favors of Tom, Dick and Harry, ant
 the employment of no small amount O.
 hard coin as powerful auxiliary.
 The fact of the buying and selling O.
 political positions, as practiced nowadays
 is potent even to the ordinary schoolboy
 and this is one of the most shameful flea
 lures of our political system. It should
 be eliminated altogether, if such a thint
 were possible. Our idea is that a mal
 whose intellectual capacity, moral wortl
 and personal popularity are not sufficien
 alone to warrant him in getting there,
 so that he is obliged to resort to the use O
 money and bribery in carrying his point
 that man should be 'fsat down on,
 s'knocked out"-be given "back seat" b.
 an indignant public sentiment.
 The time may come when there will be
 reform in these matters, but the star O
 promise appears at present to be many de
 grees below the horizon of our fondes
 hopes. r.