The Montgomery tribune. (Montgomery City, Mo.) 1892-1910, 1900-10-26

thrown away. A fund which hat
been turning more than SffO, 00t
| interest into the school fund every
year without taxing Missouri prop.
erty had been destroyed, and nov
the money for which it had beer
sold was invested in other bonds
at a high rate of interest, every
! cent of which was to be paid by
the people of Missouri, who had
been deprived of the right and
opportunity to refund their debt
at a lower rate.
There was a job in it, my boy.
Either that, or the men who put
1t on the state rs a scheme of flnan-
ciering, honestly calculated to
serve the public and the public
schools, were not fit to manage the
finances of a threshing machine.
II they were not rogues, they
were fools, and | will prove it to
you by facts and figures.
SOMETHING ABOUT GOVERNMENT
BONDS.
SIN the first place, If capable
men, who were seeking to serve
the interest of the people and the
schools, had been in charge-of the
Government of Missouri at that
tins they would never have con-
verted the Government bonds. The
bonds had been called in for re-
demption it is truef but Congress
had, in 1870, made provision, in
what vas known as the refunding
law, for the continuing OF practical-
ly all the public debt at lower rates
of interest. Ii makes no difference
what was the class of bonds held
by the Missouri school fund, they
were included in the refunding law.
Bonds renewed for ten years drew
5per cent, bonds renewed for fifteen
years drew A liz, and bonds renew
ed for 80 years drew 4. Under the
terms ofthe refLnding law the hold
ers of these bonds could have ex-
changed them par for par, for the
new ones. They could have been
Exchanged for the 4per cents. This
would have yielded 800 900 in in
rttrest but the better plan would
have been TO sell the old bonds
and then reinvest the proceeds in
the new 4 per cents, running for
thirty years. This splendid security
was going TO par, because of the
popular fear of refunding measures
and more than $500, 600, 900 went at
that figure. Missouri would have
had no trouble at all to invest the
81, 9t3, 1856 she got for the old bonds
in the n at par, and on this
amount the annual interest would
have been S75,55i,6i, every penny
of it coming into the State from the
outside. 1t would all have been
drawn from the treasury of the
United States into the treasury OF
Missouri. Then, by r~efunding that
part of the state debt falling due
the next year, at 5 per cent or a
lower rate. Missouri would have
been placed in an excellent finan-
cial position, instead of that, they
shut of entirely the flow of gold
from Washington to Jefferson City
and prevented the reduction of in
terest on that part of the public
debt of Missouri then due by buy
ing in Missouri bonds and holding
them, continuing to pay the old
rate of interest on them into school
fund. II the world ever saw worse
f%nanciering than this | have never
heard of the time nor place where
it happened.
''Figure it out for yourself. The
a per cents were issued to run
thirty years, and the rate of inter-
est on the bonds which should now
be held by Missouri, to begin run
ming in 1877, and you will find that
in the eighteen years ending in 1895
the government at Washington
would have paid the government OF
Missouri sl,22i,S74.24. IL would
bHve been like finding that much
money. IL would have run in upon
us at a steady stream of more than
10000 a year, to raise which the
people of Missouri would not have
to be taxed a dollar. AS it is, in
stead of having a dollar OF that
million and a quarter that we would
have received ON our government
bonds eighteen years ii we had
kept them, we haven't got the
bonds, and we are taxing ourselves