The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-09-21


emn one and conducive of tears
A high public official, reappointed by
him to an Office that is designed TO care
especially for the workingman and
woman, was brought to the bar of Q
public investigation by the democratio
and independent press, and was shown
to have looted the treasury to the ex-
tent of thousands of dollars.
A pert of his misdoings, but not all
of them, were exposed, and a part of
the thousands of the peoples money,
wrongfully taken, but not all, was re-
turned in the executive chamber, and
the perpetrator went thence unmolest-
ed, although the states law officer,
now asking reelection at your hands
was present and knew the full depth
of the offense against public morality
and public safety.
II is for you. nv fellow citizeus to sav
whether malfeasance in Office Is TO
be thus condoned with the approval of
the people. Are you ready TO set the
seal of your approval upon this sort of
an invitation TO some other state official
to open the vaults of the treasury with
o crow-bar and help himself2
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
to them; for as the learned Mr.. Wegg
said to the learned Mr.. Boffin: There
are ladies present"
But what the state administration
lacks In lurid beauty is more than made
up by the late legislature. It's 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 it's 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.
II any job, any license to a syndicate
to plumber the people of their rights
| without redress failed to pass, 1t was
because it's promoter had more con-
science and less gall than the two
| thirds majority.
II the prayer Of any farmer or any
workingman 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 IL and washed 1t out,
for 1t can not be found in the record.
If 1t 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. IL found the law there and
wiped 1t out under the whip of a sus-
pension of the constitutional rules and
the gag of the previous question.
It 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 100000 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 new and beautiful system of ad.
vanced drafts, which relieved the me-
cessities Of the present. A
But If any of you should catc%y yt,ar
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 it's two
sessions, devoted itself to piling loca
Indebtedness upon the people, anC
passed all sorts of special bills, good
bad, Indifferent and strictly devilish
until at the end of the second session
it had added about $50, 600, 900 to tina
form of tax-creating and taX-eatinl
obligations.
When that legislature expired it eX
pired amid the universal execration o
all men and newspapers, for this rea
son above all Others. Now the reput
lican leaders and newspapers are try
ing to deny or conceal the record.
Their denials, however, are in vagu
and general terms Some try to Gu
the enormous mountain down one-thirG
others want to reduce it one-half. bu
they take good care not to produce tn
record.
One of them declares that if we "omi
the road bills and other measures, tn
total increase of the bonded indebted
ness is only s2l,sOO, 900"
He reminds one of the fellow wh
was being tried for the unlawful sci
ing of whisky, and who plead that h
only sold cocktails. "But what compose
cocktail?" inquired the Judge. "Yo
take little water, and little sugar
and little stoughton bitters, and
little lemon, and little pine apple an
few other little things and mix theI
together" was the reply.
When pressed to tell what the othe
little things" were, he offered to sci
the court the recipe for s25 So wit
the republican writer who wants t
omit the road bills and other meas
ures," which make up the other Ss, 900
900 and complete the legislative cock
tails
On the morning on which the regula
and adjourned sessions of the legisla
ture quit work in 1892 and 1898, ther
appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer
one of the leading newspapers of tn
country, complete lists of all the bond
creating bills, with their number as in
troduced, description and the amour
of bonds they called for
These lists are still accessible in Il
files Their accuracy has never beer
successfully questioned and never will
be. The auditor of state has officiall,
certified that the increase of local deb
following the regular session of Is9
was $12, 400, 900, exactly verifying tn,
| list for that year, published in the En-