Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-10-25

The Official Organ Exposed.
The fact has been discovered that
the First National bank of Madison of
which Senator Villas is a director. is
practically the depository of $4,000
and upwards Of the state funds CON
stantly, and has been since soon after
the democrats came into power in the
state, upon which the state has never
received penny in interest. and prob
ably never Will while the democra Is
remain i'll power. But Senator Villas
IS not the only member of the present
administration who is Il personal bene-
ticiary Of this reform job which At
torney General O'ConnOr conveniently
overlookS Frank +. Proudfit, the
democratic assistant state treasurer, is
another director of the bank, and it
falls to his lot every month to pass out
of the state treasury the $4,000 or
more of cash which is at once carried
over to swell the loanable funds of his
bank. The vice president is NJ. +.
Fuller. and his Son-in-laW is State
Senator X. NJ. BashfOrd, the law part
ncr of Attorney General O'Connor. Is
it any wonder therefore that the re.
form attorney general has failed to col
lect interest for the state on this enOr
nous deposit?
But the way in which the re
formers" are able to thus favor their
bank is interesting Soon after tae
Peck administration came into power
the first time it passed law providing
for the appointment by the state board
of control, of Il treasurer for each Of
the great charitable and penal state
institutions i'll Wisconsin. In its eX-
ercise Of this appointive power the
board appointed one man treasurer of
all such institutions, seven in number
The law provides that the state board
of control shall make estimates
monthly, in advance, of the probable
expenditures in conducting such inSt-
tutionS and that thereupOn the state
treasurer shall hand over to the treas.
urer of each of these institutions the
estimated necessary sum of cash to
sustain il for the coming month. One
person having been made treasurer of
all these institutions the payments by
the state treasurer are necessarily elll
made 10 him He is an employee in
Senator Villas bank and keeps his do
positS there hence the bank Is con-
stantly the depository of one months
expenditures of all these institutions.
The state treaSurerS report for 1890
91-92 show the following sums on de
post in this bank upon which the
state receives no interest: Oct. /, 1890,
$54, 534.11: Sept. 30, 1891. S39.3l2.l6
Sept 30. 1892, sol. 1866.
1t will be urged in defense of this
system that it was in vogue under the
old republican boards in charge of
state institutions: but under repub
lcan administrations the state funds
were not authorized by law to be de
posted in banks to earn interest for
the state. by the system the board
then probably saved the salary of an
additional clerk in the state treaSurer's
office without loss of interest to the
statc Moreover Senator Villas and his
pOlitical associates had not then eS
tabliShed the reform theory that of
Il
safety of public funds and who kept
them in banks at their own risk were
robbers, liable not only for interest
paid on such deposits. but holden to
the state for compound interest at
rate three times as great as the state
is able TO secure from the banks under
the reform law. Within the past two
DAYS Atty. Gen. O'Connor VINO was
associated With Senator Villas iii prose
cutting the eX- treaSurerS. made a great
point in campaign speech in Milwau-
Kee, that they found 100000 Of state
money deposited in bank in which
a republican ex-governor was inter
ested, and upon which no interest was
paid to the state. Yet Villas and
O'Connor have not yet found TINS
$4,000 or so of state money deposited
in Il bank under their very noses and
in which the democratic Senator Villas
is heavily interested.
That the system is of any particular
convenience to anybody excepting to
those interested in the pet bank is to
be believed by nobody who is not pre-
pared to think that an order of the
board on a bank in which Villas is a
director is more acceptable to the
financial world than an order on the
state treasury of Wisconsin. Nor is
there apparent reason why the board
of control should not make the state
treasurer the eX-0tficiO treasurer of
the institutions under their care as he
is for the boards of regents of the state
university and of the state normal
school, excepting that Villas, Proudtit,
Rashford. ct al, preferred to have the
use of the money placed with bank
in which they are interested without
being required to pay the state the in
terest money on its funds.
A leading democrat in the state
whose rela tons to the reform admin
istration and to the state board of con
troll have been such as TO give the as
sertion weight. is reported to have
been rendered an opportunity early in
these institutions and to be allowed to
deposit the funds in Milwaukee
bank instead of the one in Madison
He decided that he did not want the
Job. because he was averse to having
some impartial successor to the pres
ent reform attorney general come
along years hence and collect the in
terest he would receive, as we'll as the