Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-11-02

REPORT WAS A BOOK OF 4S4
PAGES, SHOWING EVERY ITEM
OF RECEIPTS AND EXPENDI-
TURES- SOME INTERESTING COM
MENTS ON AN UNIQUE, QUAINT
AND CURIOUS PUBLIC DOCU-
MENT.
We have just received copy of the
biennial report of State Treasurer
Kendall.
In the way of ornamentation and
adornment it is simply unique
If the title were omitted, we are not
prepared to say for what it would be
taken by the ordinary individual, but
we should be inclined at first glance
to set it down as an illustrated cata-
logue of heightened sanitarium, with
a frontispiece of the benefcent pro-
prietor. who runs the institution in
the interest of high science and hui
mainly.
We think, however, the portrait
scarcely does the handsome Treasurer
justice, though the artist seems to
have happily caught the air of serene
and conscious power with which the
Treasurer's friends are SO familiar;
and the billowy roll of the hair is GER
tainly a masterpiece of its kind. we
must observe. nevertheless. that no
amount of good looks justifies a State
official in transmitting his picture to
I'm admiring people in an official docu-
ment, whether it be paid for by him
self or the State. A paper that is pre-
pared for purposes set forth in the
statute and at the expense of the State
Is intended for other uses than this.
Following this portrait and inter-
Bpersed with an occasional page OF fig
nres, are wood-cuts of the State House,
nsylums, Home for Incurables, public
school buildings, etc. Then come some
thirty odd pages of advertising cards
of the different banks that are State
repositories. It is stated that these
cards are put in at the expense of the
banks. Just why they should be put
in at all, and why what should be a
; grave official report, is converted into
an advertising gazetteer, we are unable
to see.l Probably the Treasurer was
conscious that his meagre and sparsely
scatt ered figures, if compactly grouped
by themselves, would hardly justify
publication, for out of the eighty odd
pages only about thirty odd are at all
concerned with the States finances.
AS might be expected from the front
ispiece, the whole work is prefaced by
an address to the public. What reasons
there may be for inflicting the people
I Of the State with this particular piece
of exposition literature just at this
time, and why it should be done in this
document, we do not pretend to be able
to fathom. Probably we ought to be
thankful for it's brevity and say nc
more. An almost equally brief com
munication to the Governor follows
conveying the assurance that the writer
approves the treasury system in vogue
attent;o,. exception or two, which
proper time. i'As' to at tbt
nr AS 70 the report nrono
pretend to be able pioDer MO
TO DO 1T JUSTICE.
~ Is evidently a case of .HamIet with
one s i.nGe 81 Denmark left out" The
rendered the State Treasurer's biennial
report a valuable document are the
tables of receipts and disbursements.
In the last report these covered about
four hundred and eighty pages. The
first OF these tables showed, item by
item, and day by day, every sum of
money received at the Treasury, by
whom and on what account it was paid
and in what bank deposited. The sec
ond showed the amount of every paw
ment made by the Treasurer, giving
the number and date of check. the
bank On which it was drawn, the name
OF the payee and the particular account
to which it was chargeable. In these
tables the reader had before him every
transaction at the Treasury entered at
the time it occurred. With their aid
any false grouping OF figures could at
once be detected. The amount paid
on any particular appropriation, the
taxes turned in by any particular sher-
1T, the total receipts or disbursements
for any particular period of time or
whether any individual received from
or paid into the Treasury any sum of
money, could be at once learned by
looking through these valuable and in
teresting details. Would it be believed
that the present Treasurer has abso-
lutely omitted these tables, giving in
lieu of them some forty or fifty lines
showing only the total monthly re-
ceipts on account of all the different
funds aggregated? Such is the fact,
and this he has done
IN OPEN DEFIANCE
of the provision that "a complete and
detailed statement of the receipts and
expenditures of the public moneys
shall be published annually" But as if
not contented with rendering his own
report absolutely valueless by this
omission, the present Treasurer pro-
ceeds to appropriate bodily from the
Auditors department-that is to saw.
of the thirty odd pages that concern
the States finances, more than five
sixths of them relate to matters that
will be found in the Auditors report.
In fact we are disposed to believe that
everything of the slightest value in
the present Treasurer's report, with