The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1892-02-06
STATE OFFICIALS.
COUNTY OFFICIALS.

The CHRONICLE is in no sense
cheeseparing sheet. 1t believes in at
taching good and sufficient salaries to
all public offices but it does not believe
in foolish, wasteful and extravagant
use of the peoples money. In the case
of legislative or gubernatorial honors,
where the Office is never sought
for the wages attached to it, the pittance
of So day or $500 year may be justi-
fable, but offices that are not stepping
stones to power and influence or compli-
mentary tokens of respect. but whose
only reward is the salary attached,
should be paid literally in proportion to
the character and responsibility OF the
work. The laws of Oregon as they re-
late to the salaries of state and county
officers are just about as bad as bad can
be. Only short time ago row oc-
Cured between the county clerk and
county assessor of Multnomah when the
latter gave the facts and figures to prove
that in the year 1890 the county clerk
got two-thirds as much for simply making
copy of the assessment roll as the as
SCISSOR was paid for doing the whole
work in making the original, a work
that required the labor OF two or three
men for a whole year. 1t will surprise
many of the tax payers of Wasco county
to learn that the condition of things in
this county differs very little from that
of Multnomah. The clerk of Wasco
county gets about half as much for max
ing two copies each of the assessment
roll and military list as the assessor
gets for doing the whole work connected
with the originals. Be that as it may
the fee book for 1891 shows that the
county paid its clerk the sum of $20S
each for making two copies of the as
sessment roll and SO each for making
two copies of the military Est or 1855 in
all. Any competent penman could copy
the whole in less than three weeks time
working eigth hours a day and thus
earn" nearly 500 week. The
CHRONICLE must not be misunderstood.
These are the fees, as we understand it,
that the law has prescribed for this
work. The clerk simply charges what
the law allows him, no more nor no less.
The county court has no jurisdiction in
the matter. The fault is wholly in the
law that permits this outrageously ex-
travagant compensation. But this is
not all. The entire fees and emolu-
ments of the clerk and sheriff's offices
are on par. 1t need not therefore sur
prise the taxpayers when they are told
that during the year just past these two
offices received from the county funds,
for their criminal and county business
alone, EXCUSE of all fees for record and
conveyance work, licences and costs of
civil procedures, the sum of SO, ,5O4 26
and for the two years ending the first of
January last over $22,0 900. We have no
figures to show the amounts received
for the civil business of the offices but
an estimate made by those thoroughly
familiar with the income of these Of
fees in past years places the clerk s
civil fees at nearly half and the sheriffs
at about one-third of the income paid by
the county. If this estimate is correct,
and it must be nearly SO, it has cost the
taxpayers of Wasco county, to run these
Offices for the past two years not less
than the sum of $4,000, while for the
past year, since Sherman county has
been cut off, the cost has been in the
neighborhood of $4,000. The CHRoN1-
Gle is attacking nobody. It has laid
these facts before the people, at the ex-
press desire of taxpayers who insist that
this criminal extravaganza with the law
that sanctions it must be abolished by
the next legislature. On the eve of an
election campaign it is just as well to
know what the people will demand from
candidates for the legislature. If candi-
dates for the offices named consider
themselves aggrieved we remind them
that'no one has a life lease on the job
but whether or no, these incomes must
be cut down to reasonable figures. The
taxpayers will insist upon it and the
CHRONICLE will fight for it, and no can
didate for the legislature will receive
the support of either unless he pledges
himself to work for it.
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