Omaha daily bee., 1898-10-20
REFORM PAYS HIM PLENTY
Attorney General Of Nebraska Knows Good
Thing When he Sees 1t,
sMYTH AND HIS OFFICE EXPENSES
Constitutional Limitations Ignored in
the wild Chnsc for Pcrauisites and
the Drawing of Vouchers TO Get
Money from the state.

LINCOLN, Oct. 1g.--(Specal.) OF all the
state officers under the present administra-
tion Attorney General Smyth seems to have
had the least regard for the state constitu-
tion. The records show that he has been
engaged in a grab game during all the time
that he has been in Office and instead Of up
holding the constitution In its strict letter,
he has. fguratively speaking trampled that
document in the dust whenever and
wherever there has been chance for finan-
cial gain In so doing The constitution
tArticle " section 2D provides that the sal
ary Of the attorney general shall be $1,000
per year. "and after the adoption of this
constitution they shall not receive to their
own use any fees. costs. interests upon pub
lie moneys in their hands or under their
control perquisitcs of Office or other COM
pensation." The same section Prov '-r
there shall be no allowance fOr clerk hire
in the offices OF the superintendent Of , bile
instruction and attorney general" Section
26 OF the same article is in full as follows:
mo other executive state office shall be
continued or created, and the duties now
devolvlng upon officers not provided for by
this constitution shall be performed by the
officers herein created"
These provisions have caused G. ]. Smyth
no uneas!ness. There ere vouchers on fe
at the state house to show that he has up
10 date drawn the following suuls of money,
Official salary SO, i99 Sc
Maximum rate case .................. 37526
Governors prosecution fund ........ 1856
travelling expenses .................... 493O5
Total ........................... 536 50
Plenty of Help In the once.
p-vidc' these amounts the deputy attorney
general has been drawing pay at the rate of
$3.50 per month and has taken all the trim
mings that came his way. There has been
employed in the Office clerk who has drawn
up TO date 81 500, and besides this extra help
a stenographer has been employed by the
Office most of the time, the compensation
running to about $1,000. The pay for this
latter clerk has been taken from the fund
provided for the governor to aid in the
prosecution of state officials, and from va
rious incidental funds, the scraping up of
the salary for the extra clerk, reminding one
Of Rewick's manipulation of the amusement
fund at the asylum. The constitution has
been evaded by calling one clerk deputy,
another "stenographer" and the female
clerk is simply paid and called expense
on the records, which designation, so far as
the taxpayers are concerned, Is quite cor
rect. This large Office force. which seems to
have been expressly prohibited by the con-
stitution, has attended to the business of
the office, and the attorney general has thus
been able to spend most of his time at home
attending to his private business or in
structing the voters on political matters.
The various pretences under which Smyth
has pulled "perquisites" out OF the public
treasury show up in an interesting manner
on the record. The following is the wording
of few OF them:
Voucher 1884, drawn July 3O 1897
Railroad fare and hotel bill to Chicago,
taking deposition in State against Mosher
ct al, S35 15."
Voucher 10000, March 81, 1Ss7-"Expense
viz: Railroad fare, hotel bills and expenses
in connection with preparation Of reply brief
in maximum rate cases, $3.50"
Voucher 1880, July 30-"Railroad fare,
hotel bills and expense to Washington pend
ing motion and submitting maximum rate
cases, $685.
Voucher 1889, July 3o-"Going to and re-
turning from o'Neill in case State against
BARLEY, $2l.20."
Voucher 212S1 May 10, 1S9S-"Expense 10
Washington attending supreme court of the
United States in the matter of motion for
rehearing In maximum rate cases as fol-
lows: Railroad fare s76'26; hotel bills
$5675."
Voucher 17744, December 21 1S97-"Ral-
road fare and hotel bills in case of Board
against State before commissioner of general
IanQ OI1Ct ut w Siol. hioO hol'l
expenses and money paid out for steno-
graphic assistance in State against BARLEY,
$50
Some PccuIinrities Presented.
There are some pecularities about these
vouchers, and the public will wonder how
Smyth managed to perform such expensive
services when nobody was looking. For in
stance, voucher 17744 is drawn against the
fund provided for travelling expenses" and
the $50 for hotel bills and stenographer In
the BARLEY case was when Smyth was al
homo at Omaha and he must have strained
great deal to figure in the hotel bill oil
10 designate the stenographer as travelling
expense"
1t will be noticed, too, that there Is a
doubling up in the vouchers for the maxi
mum rate case expense, SO that by swearing
to three separate bills he managed to draw
$375.26 from the maximum rate case fund
and Sl33 from the "traveling expense" fund,
all for the same service, and on a junket
to Washington that resulted in no good TO
the state OF Nebraska. All this time the ofIi-
,cial salary OF the attorney general was
going on and was being drawn with start