Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-09-21


TO open the vaults Of the treasury with
n crow-bar and help himself?
And then there were scandals and
scandals in the penitentiary and other
departments Of the state government
but you will excuse me for not referring
20 them; for as the learned Mr.. Wegg
said to the learned Mr.. Bofin: There
are ladies present."
But what the state administration
lacks in lurid beauty is more than made
up by the late Legislature. Its record
towers above all others, as the noun
tains Of the moon tower above a collec-
ton of mole hills
1t was two-thirds republican in both
branches, and yet Gov. Mckinley and
the republican correspondents are try
ing TO lay its sins on the democratic
party. That is, when they are not de-
nying its record, or are praising its
worst misdeeds, as they do sometimes.
If any job, any license to syndicate
TO plunder the people OF their rights
without redress, failed to pass, it was
because its promoter had more con-
science and less gall than the two
thirds majority.
If the prayer of any farmer or any
worl1ingman for relief from any bur.
den, or protection against any rapacity,
was needed in a Legislative enactment,
the recording angel dropped tear of
surprised joy upon it and washed it out,
for it can not be found in the record.
If it left upon the statute books any
democratic law cutting official salaries
| down to reasonable proportions, the
fact is unknown to the taxpayers of the
state. 1t found the law there and
wiped it out under the whip of sus-
! pension Of the constitutional rules and
the gag of the previous question.
1t appropriated every dollar of possi-
BILE revenues in the treasury, and then
emulating the example of the man who
| conducted double-entry bookkeeping,
by charging the items up twice, it appro-
priated 5000, 900 that was not in the
treasury, but which must be drawn
from next years revenues to meet the
expenditures of this.
This is one of the things which Gov.
Mckinley especially praised in his
| speech of acceptance. He described it
as a new and beautiful system of ad-
vanced drafts, which relieved the ne
cessities of the present.
But if any of you should catch vS.lt
| clerk, or cashier, or book-keeper max
ing advance drafts on his next years
! salary to meet his riotous expenditures
of this year, how long would you permit
him to have charge of your business?
| This same legislature, during its two
sessions, devoted itself to piling local
Indebtedness upon the people, and
passed all sorts of special bills, good,
bad, Indifferent and strictly devi1ish,
until at the end of the second session
it had added about $50, 100000 to that
form of tax-creating and tax-eating
obligations.
When that legislature expired, it ex-
| pired amid the universal execration of
all men and newspapers, for this rea-
son abC'e all others. Now the repub-
lican lcI Iers and newspapers are try
ing to deny or conceal the record
Their denials, however, are in vague
and general terms. Some try to cut
the enormous mountain down one-third;
others want to reduce it one-half, but
they take good care not to produce the
record.
One of them declares that if we ''omit
the road bills and other measures, the
total increase of the bonded indebted
ness is only s21, 800, ooor'
He reminds one of the fellow who
was being tried for the unlawful SELL
ing of whisky, and who plead that he
only sold cocktails. But what composes
cocktail?' inquired the Judge. "You
take a little water, and little sugar,
and little stoughton bitters, and a
little lemon, and little pine apple and
few other little things and mix them
together" was the reply.
When pressed to tell what the other
''little things were, he offered to sell
the court the recipe for S25. So with
the republican writer who wants to
omit the ''road bills and other meas
ures," which make up the other IS, ,200,.
900 and complete the legislative cock.
tails.
On the morning on which the regular
and adjourned sessions of the legisla'
ture quit work in 1899 and 1898, there
appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer,
one of the leading newspapers of the
country, complete lists of all the bond
creating bills, with their number as in
troduced, description and the amount
of bonds they called for.
These lists are still accessible in its
files. Their accuracy has never been
successfully questioned and never will
be. The auditor of state has officially
certified that the increase of local debt
following the regular session of 1s9:
was S12, 100000 exactly verifying the
list for that year, published in the En-
quirer.
The list published in 1898 shows ar
increase of SIT, 800, 600 in round mum
bers, and the next annual report of the
auditor of state will confirm its accur
acy.
This year, for the first time, the gen
eral laws are bound in one volume and
the local laws are to be bound in an.
other. The local laws create the SIT,
600, ,0oodeb The general laws have beer
printed and bound; the local laws have
not. Nor will they be in all likelihood
this side of the November election
They are the record of the bonds, ant
are under the seal of secresy in friend
ly printing Office. in Norwalk The re
! publican leaders deny the enormity O
the burden and say: Produce the law
and show the amount of bondsr'
This is what they call republican
craftsmanship in Ohio!
And in that same printing Office are
buried the journals of the two houses
and there they will remain buried un
til after the election, and the repub
lican members denying their records
will defy their constituents to prove
them by the journal