The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-01-17
THE DEMOCRATIC BOARD.

THE DEMOCRATIC BOARD.
The county board is now wholly dem
ocratic. This brought to its members
agreat party responsibility as we'll as a
great party opportunity. If they had
gone to work and had shown to the
people how competent and fairminded
they could be, they would have added
very greatly to the reputation of their
party with the people of the county, but
in their first session they made two
grave mistakes. First-they failed to
reduce the salary of the. county attOr
ney to its former amount This is
wholly unexplainable. We understand
that the present county attorney volun-
teered to do the work at the old salary
and told the board that he had no OBJ
lection to offer to its being reduced.
Is there any possible reason why the
people should pay the county attorney
more than he asks? DO you pay more
wages than your employee thinks he is
entitled to? Do you pay the merchants
more for his goods than he asks him
self? Yet this is what the board has
compelled the people of this county to
do. las frequently stated by the Re-
VIEW on account of this action of the
board, the county is obliged to incur an
additio nal xpense OF more than $500 a
year. The people get no better service
thantheydid before; they gain nothing,
but it costs $500 more. 1t was pride
and pride only which kept the board
from reducing this salary. The mem
bers evidently cared more about stub
bornly sticking by their record than
they did about saving the peoples
money. Thepeople may think differ
emily about this-they may think more
about their hard earned dollars than
they do about keeping the board of
supervisors record straight.
The second thing in which the board
showed how much they placed their
own and their party's interests above
the interests of the people, was the way
in which the county printing was let.
There is nothing in this which is per-
sonal to the REVIEW. The board gave
this paper what the law compelled.
The REVIEW presented the largest
list, and according to law it was award
ed the county printing. Other papers
had opportunity to attack this list be.
fore the board, but they knew it was
useless and no contest was filed. They
may do SO now in public print, but
when the board was in session and the
time was ripe to prove that the RE-
VIEW list was not as claimed, they did
not dare attack it. But this is beside
the question. The REVIEW and Bulle-
tin having shown the first and second
largest English lists, were accorded the
printing as the law provides.
Asto the other papers the board de.
cided that it could use its own discre-
lion, and never was there a more alb
surd and unwarranted display of wreck
less partisanship. 1t is the evident in
tent of the law that the proceedings
should be published so as to reach the
greatest possible number of people.
The four other papers filing lists were
as follows: The Denison Zeitung Gnd. J..
1l20-the second largest list in the
county; Der Demokrat (dem.), 653;
The Vail Observer (ind), 466; The Dow
City Enterprise (dem y, 26O. We give
the figures from memory and they may
be slightly inaccurate. The board gave
the proceedings to the Zeitung with its
1120 subscribers at a Is cent rate, and
then decided that it was worth one
third more to reach the 653 subscribers
of the Demokrat. For reaching 1l2O
Zeitung subscribers the county pays
Is cents; for reaching the 653 on the
Demokrat 1T pays 20 cents. We defy
any member of the board to give one
reason for this except that the Demo-
KRAFT is a democratic paper.
But the greatest injustice was done
in the case of the outside papers. Mr..
Vail of the Observer knew the scheme
had been arranged to beathim out il
possible. He presented what we be-
lieye to have been an honest straight
list, and made showing which would
do credit to any paper published in a
town of the size of V all. He.was repre-