Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1894-02-16
A PoPULIsT WANTS TO KNOW.
Scme Reflections Upon the Administration
OF Our County Government.

CLEARWATER, Idaho, Feb. 12, 1894
EDITOR FREE PREss'--
Some of your readers will call me kicker.
will tell you how became kicker. You
know out here rs a matter Of necessity we get
rout our fencing material in the winter. So this
winter. while plodding about in the snow, my
feet and legs would get cold and wet, partly
from the depth of the snow, but mostly from
brought on this faii tand SOLD at a very superior
price, so of nights when | would go to my
downy cot to sleep. about midnight would
awake from my pleasant dreams Of a new fence
in the spring on my little 100 by the aching
pains in my feet and legs. caused by being wet
PEELED to some attention to my PEDESTAL parts
the thought ran through my mind that the
county assessor would call around next sum-
mer and impose u fine OF about three cents per
dollar for my making fence this winter; SO
thinking about the ilne and the pain in my legs
kicked right out OF bed and commenced to
Soliloquize in about this manner: | came to
Idaho county about ten years ago; was the
possessor Of about what stood up in; found
loo acres vacant land across the Clearwater
there was plenty brush and timber on 1t to
keep man busy for II few years to make an
with n claim on IT, which not the case with
all the land on the prairie. which was partly
the cause of my coming on this side. The peo-
pie Of Grangeville asked me II actually
thought it worth filing on. said of course it
was cheap land, but ~ was poor man
at MI. Idaho was just finished. The county
was about $ll 900 In debt11 mills on the dollar,
was the amount collected for taxes; the county
not many tax payers. Today we find the
county in debt over s66,0 900, nearly so mills on
the dollar collected for taxes. Decided land on
tEis side wns assessed at 81 .25 per acre now it,
Is assessed at 5000 per acre. besides the value
of Improvements. which ten years ago was al
most at zero; now they worth more than
the assessed value of the land then. The num-
bcr of tax payers havesmore than doubled, the
amount and assessed value of property moro
than thribblcd. Very little Improvement in
public property = a few half constructed
bridges were received and paid for-the condi-
tion of the roads viii suggest to the reader
what amount of improvements have been
made on them in ten years. But very few cost
| ly terms of court have been held in the county,
! the PEN not many paupers; no contagious dis
eases. With the exception of 1893, taxes have
mostly been promptly paid. Yet under all
I these favorable circumstances taxes have in
creased and the county Is 81 times much in
| debt. Now Mr.. Editor, II looks mighty suspf-
cious the way our county funds have been
| handled. find that in ten years / have paid
| goo in taxes. | could not today sell the land
as bare of improvements as the dav found It
for county officials ten years aud boarded and
clothed myself. The county officials have been
| about equally divided between democrat and
| republican, SO | just kicked myself out of the
democratic party into the party of the people
and for the people. II is n novel way OF get
ting lille sense into n mans head-the me-
dium o. his fcet-in such cases they are most
| always on other peoples legs. But am going
T. keep right on kicking until get to Mt. Idaho
the 22nd Of this month, AS every other voter
| should do that is interested in the welfare of
his country, to help make arrangements to
place the stewardship of this county in some
new and clean hands. A PoPULIsT.