The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1896-01-30


Legislative critics spend nearly all their tim,
watching the spigot and leave nobody tc
stand guard over the bunghole. The small
leaks attract our whole attention. The most
serious evils are overlooked and apparently
not appreciated. No one pretends that the
legislative appropriations could not or should
not have been curtailed in many ways, and
yet the cutting off Of every appropriation
against which protest is made would make
scarcely an appreciable difference in our tax
levy. For this excess, too, the people them
selves are directly responsible. AT every
biennial session, avery section of the state
comes down to share in the distribution OF
the treasury surplus. Union county wants
a branch asylum; Gillian wants normal
school; Umatilla wants an appropriation for
her normal school; Morrow wants sfh appro-
priation for the Columbia river; Lakeview
wants one for graded school; jackson
county wants one fora normal school at Ash
land; Douglas for tha school at Drain, and
the Soldiers home at Roseburg; Lane for
| the state university; Benton for the state
agricultural college; Polk for the school at
, Monmouth; the other counties for their
| orphans homes and otheL purposes, and the
''Salem hog" for the rest. Every constitu-
| ency holds its representation responsible for
any failure to secure the pet local appropri
alton, and the man who stands agast at tho
total Of the general appropriation bill is
often the most unsparing critic of the legis-
lator who votes against his favorite appropri-
alton. The clamor Of all these various con-
stituencies for a local appropriation, and the
threat of political extinction for the repre-
sentative who fails, forces the legislative
these scattered interests.
Every constituency wants an appropria-
tion, and every constituency condemns the
total which is the logical result of its own
local demands. These different approl ra-
tions have varying degrees of merit; but,
whether good, bad or Indifferent, their spon-
sors are compelled to make common cause,
as the failure Of one may mean the failure of
all. These legislative combines have always
been vigorously denounced, but the people
themselves are primarily responsible for
them. 1t is fact too worthy Of comment
that the net results of these So o-called raids
upon the treasury ars greatly exaggerated.
You may strike out from our last general ap-
precipitation bill all that is set apart for the
railroad commission, for the state university,
for the state agricultural college, for state
and district fairs, for the state board OF equal.
izatioa, for the WeSton and Monmouth nor
NAL schools, and for all the various homes,
and you have saved the taxpayers less than
SI5 900 per year-less than one-tenth of the
total appropriation. In other words, under
the present state levy, which amounts to 4.s
mills, yon have saved less than u of mill.
In Salem, where our total tax amounts to
something more than 80 mills, the man who
pays a tax of $50 would save just 81; and
yet practically the whole army of critics join
in denunciation Of tho legislature which un-
necessarily imposed that extra dollar Of tax,
while those who are responsible for the
remaining $50 re-ocho the cry, pile up tho
fuel under the boilers of their Indignation
and chuckls in high glee at the SUCCESS in
diverting the attention of the taxpayers from
the real source Of trouble.
''It is not probable that the most rigid
economist could safely promise to so reduce
our appropriation. as to affect the state levy
to the extent of one mill. The great bulk of
our appropriations are for Che care and sup
port Of the dependent and criminal clesses,
and the reports show that with us the per
capita cost for this purpose is less than the
average in other states. Next comes the
heavy cost of our judicial and administra-
two departments. This might, in many
ways, bo reduced, and yet the aggregate
possible reduction would be but as a drop in
the total appropriation. This is not to be
construed as an argument against the reduc
ton Of e1travagant appropriations, bat as a
protest against attributing to the last legisla-
ture all tho woes thst atfiict mankind.
"Thc daetardly crime Of 1878 is about tho
oaly disreputablc thing which has not been
laid at its door and there seems to be lurking
Suspicion in the minds Of many that possi-
by we had something to do with the demon
itization of silver and the consequent de-
pressed condition Of the wheat and cotton
market Criticism of public officials often
loses its force because it is too often exagger-
ted, too often unfair, and too often indlscrlm-
mate In the confusion of popular clamor,
the re ronsbiiity for public abuses is often
shifted, and the real culprit escapes. Dema-
g,xue, Of ali factions, with tho loudest pro-
fes.ioa. of indignation, and with the most
pathetic a.sereratioHs of devotion to the
"plain people, of tho country, will bend
every effort to fix the responsibility for their
own shortcomings upon the other fellow,
and the real criminal often comes out of the
dust and smoke of battle rs the popular
favorite. It is well enough to talk about
eliminating money from politics, to say for
the ten thoasnndth time that the people are
aroused, to tell us that the taxeaters are to be
relocated to the rear, and that state, county
and municipal corruption mast come to an
Immediate end, but this expected political
millennium will never come until at least nine
| tenths of the voters of the country are 'born
again" in political sense. No man can be
permanently successful in either commercial
] or political life WHO does not attend strictly
to business every day In tile year. But Il
mere fraction of the people of the country
| make business of politics, in the higher
sense. The najority do not attend the pri-
maries. Nj re tenths of those who do not
attend the primaries never make their pres
encc felt at The conventions, and the delegates
to our conventions consider their duty done
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