The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-12-31
AN OUTRAGE AssAILED.

The paper which Township Trustee
Job Sims read at the meeting of trus-
tees on Friday. an abstract Of which
appeared in the Journal of Saturday.
should be printed in full for the infor-
nation of the incoming Legislature and
the people. 1t lays bare as bold piece
of scoundrelfsm as was ever perpetrated
by the majority of Legislature against
the people who elected it. That the At
torney-general alone might stuff his
pockets with money collected from the
people for the support of public schools
was this proviso added to the law for
the distribution of the State tuition
fund. 1t seems incredible that any man
of ordinary intelligence, who, as a men,
Der of the committee recommending this
proviso. could have been duped by
Green Smith and his assistants into the
conviction that it was not a plot to
legalize a steal. The remarkable thing
is that such a committee could have
been induced to do such thing for the
benefit of one man without considera-
ton. Perhaps the chief beneficiary
spoke from knowledge when he declared
that the last Legislature was the most
venai that he had ever known.
The probability is that the matter
was hurried through both branches
without the majority of the members
understanding it's purport. 1t was
enough for certain members to be told
that it would compel Indianapolis and
one or two other of the larger cities to
disgorge money which was corruptly OBJ
officials to secure their votes. 1t is not
surprising in such a Legislature as was
the last and with such loose practices
as have been in vogue in recent legis-
latures, that state" before the word
tuition, as appeared in the printed bill,
omitted in the enrolment, thus
changing the scope of the law SO as to
extend the steal of the Encouragement
to all school funds in hand the first
Monday in July. So long as members of
the Legislature and of the lobby are
permitted to have possession of bills in
which they are interested from the time
they are presented until passed, en-
rolled and enacted the laws are likely to
be others than legislatures enact
Trustee Sims applies the epithet Of
Sharks" to the emissaries Of Attorney
general Smith whom he sent out to
gather in the school money for their
master. Under the act as revised by the
lobby of Green Smith the sharks
claimed that all funds held for school
be turned into the State treasury eve
must have our fees" Mr.. Sims reports
these agents as saying: and if they so
said they told the truth. The measure
was conceived in the coarse-grained
greed of Green Smith for fees. it was
lobbied through the Legislature for fees
and it was amended before enrolment
to multiply fees. And the sharks" act
ing under the instructions Of their mas
ter, were, to use the phrase of that ex-
official, instructed to milk the COW
dry By his own report to the Coy
ernor Green Smith confesses that prior
to Oct. 81, 1894. he had raided the school
fund for many thousand dollars How
much of this he paid to his Sharks"
and to get the Democratic leaders in
the Legislature to legalize what would
otherwise be felony the taxpayers will
never know.
The fees collected by other officers.
State and county. are taken, for the
most part, from those to whom the
service is rendered. but in this case
those who paid the school taxes which
constitute the school funds are forced
to pay the fees awarded the Attorney
general-fees which cannot be regarded
il any other light than plundering of
the public schools of the State