The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-08-31
THE POPULIsT SENATE.

THE PoPULIsT SENATE.
Out of forty members composing
! the last state senate the populist
party elected twenty-three. They
had a strong working majority, and
are responsible for the acts of that
body. They told the people the re-
publicans had been guilty of useless
expenditures in conducting the bust
ness of the senate, and pledged
themselves to practice rigid econ
omy and enforce needed reforms.
What was the result after the cleo
ton? They gathered at Topeka,
bringing with them their sons,
daughters, nephews, nieces, and
uncles, seeking in every way to pro-
vide them with fat places. While
twenty competent persons could
have transacted all the work per-
tanning to the senate, they actually
placed one hundred and eight en-
ployes on the pay roll. Out of that
number eighty-two were relatives OF
senators. Twenty-eight enrolling
and engrossing clerks were appoint
ed the first of the session at three
dollars a day each, although but one
bill passed the senate until thirty
six days after the senate convened.
The engrossing ami enrolling work
Of the senate cost over five thousand
dollars, when proposition was sub
mitted to do the entire work for
three hundred and thirty dollars.
The employees of the senate cost the
state over twenty thousand dollars,
although several populist senators
said they would take a contract to
have the same work done for three
thousand dollars.
In the matter of appropriations,
their pledges to economic were
recklessly disregarded. Take the
appropriation for the Industrial
school at Beloit. In Senate Bill
No. I75, providing for its main
| tenance, they reduced the pay of the
washerwoman fifteen dollars year,
the matron one hundred and fifty
dollars year, the engineer from
four hundred and eighty to four
hundred dollars year, and the
hundred and fifty dollars year,
and then raised the appropriation
| for the bank commissioners office,
presided over by John w. Briden-
thai, from fifty three hundred to ten
thousand dollars a year. Ia Senate
Bill No. 194 they reduced the pay of
the night Waterman from two hun
dred and forty to one hundred and
eighty dollars year, and then rails
ed the appropriation of the adju-
/ tant generals office, as shown by
Senate Bill No. AZ, from twenty
five thousand dollars for the fiscal
year ending June 80, 1893, to forty
| five thousand dollars for the fiscal
year ending June 80, 1894, twenty
thousand dollars more than had ever
, been appropriated before for that
office for the same period of time.
They reduce the salaries of the four
| jsnitors in the state house, as shown
by Senate Bill No. Al, ten dollars a
month each, and then passed a mis-
cellaneous appropriation bill appro-
pIiating the enormous sum of one
hundred and twenty-three thous-
and dollars, and this was outside Of
the regular approximation bills
which provided for ell the expenses
of the judicial and executive de-
partments as we'll as the different
state institutions.
They reduced the salary of the
sewing teacher at the Beloit school
seventy dollars a year, and then
passed a bill creating a couf. of
appeals that would have cost the
state sixty thousand dollars a year.
The reduction only affected a poor
woman, while the court was created
to provide places for Webb, King,
Doster, Fitzgerald, Nicholson and
Clemens, as judges, and a host of
other lobbyists as clerks, reporters
and baiIiffs. The populist senator
from Usage county, Senator Jumper,
left before tbs close of the session,
and declared that the appropriations
being pushed through the senate
were infamous and without reason,
and that be wanted to disclaim any