The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-06-17
SCRAMBLE FOR BONDS.
Treasurer Grimes Tells How Anxious
People Are to Get Kansas Securities.

Money" said State Treasurer Frank
Grimes, as he accepted the cash for a
large batch of school bonds, was never
so plentiful nor so cheap as at the pres
ent. We have to be very careful or
some localities would take up bonds be-
longing to the school fund that are not
due. The law does not permit their
payment before maturity unless the
money has been regularly raised by
taxation for such purpose.
Eastern parties are offering any
quantity of money at per cent inter-
est. A great number of school bonds
held in out vaults which bear per cent
or per cent contain an option of re-
demption clause and they are being
taken up by the municipalities them
selves or by refunding at lower rate
of interest.
THE day is past when Kansas bonds
are a reproach on the markets of the
world. Today they are at a premium.
or course this applies to bonds which
have been regularly and legitimately
issued, and not to the boom time issues
of ten years ago. Some of those will
not be paid for many a yearperhapS
never.
Il wish that the matter of the boom
time bonds of western Kansas could
fairly be presented to the eastern hold
ers. Many of them never were regu-
larly issued, although their defects may
nave been cured SO that a court of law
could not knock them out. I have lived
In western Kansas for many years and
l know what the people out there have
gone through. There are no better
people on the face of the earth, but
these are not the boomers who put the
bonds on those coU>1ties. No, indeed:
the boomer, after getting all he could
in western Kansas, swindling the west
and the east alike, has gone to practice
his nefarious trade in some other local
ity. know of instances where rnu-
inequalities in the west have been bond
ed before there were bona fide settlers
residing there. Our people now in the
west are there for the purpose of max
ing their homes and improving the
them that bonds to the extent of tens
of thousands of dollars have been
placed on their towns and counties by
parties who came and resided there
long enough to do that and then left.
The holders of these bonds should
understand this, and not insist upon
the full pound of flesh and the exac-
ton of the uttermost farthing. Many
of these western bonds were bought
away below par. We are not repudi-
ators, but. when I see wealthier portions
OF the state getting all the money they
want at 4 per cent, 1 think something
might be done for the homesteaders of
the west who pay per cent or more on
bonds that never benefited them dol
lar. Where the bonds run to the state
have hopes of seeing a more equitable
adjustment of this matter in the near
future. We must do this Certainly
the school fund must be kept inviolate,
as nearly as possible, but a scaling of
the Indebtedness in principal or interest
for these western counties and school
districts would be a Just and righteous
thing to do. The wrong, if wrong there
be, was Derpetrated years ago when the
money was first expended. The law
for the protection of the school fund
cannot mean that where a school dis
trfct is unable to pay all the debt, that
the state cannot accept part, but must
let it all be lost