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

see how a business man can lool
at 1t any other way. BY this time
we could have had, out OF the gov
eminent, about SO, 900, 900.
"Honest and capable manage
ment OF state finances would have
taken the s6i6, 95s.33 reimbursed
by the United States TO Missouri
for direct taxes and invested It In
the 2 per cents then being Issued to
refund loans made at a higher rate.
This would have increased the rev
enue of Missouri received from the
national government nearly sf3, 900
per annum, and brought our in-
come from that one source up to
approximately $4,000 n year for a
few years. The same management
would have consolidated all our
government bonds into one loan of
the 2 per cents. That would leave us
now, with bonds to the face value
of 1850, S2f.33, on which we would
draw interest every year, without
taxing ourselves a penny, the
amount of S5f, 2t6.50. And these
bonds, paying us that handsome
sum every year without a cent of
expense to us, would be worth
what? Well let's see. They are now
commanding, in the open market,
an avesage premium on the 50, $780,
S24.33 par value, and you will find
that their present is over 5000, 900
for which they could be sold in a
days time if some great disaster
should occur TO the schools Of Mis-
souri, requiring a great expenditure
of money to rehabilitate them.
"Well, we haven't got it. Fave
we got anything in it's place? I'm
from Missouri and you'll have to
show me If we have, for IN be
damned if / can find it by myself.
Those Missouri bonds, which they
say were put in the school fund,
when they ought to have been eth
err paid OF or refunded, put inter-
est into the school fund, but instead
of coming out OF Uncle Sans
pocket II came out of ours. But
after awhile our fnanciers wanted
to make another conversion. Ste
phens says the state bonds were
due again, and he also intimates
that the state was not ready to
meet them. As it was the school
fund held them, the state, so the
Governor says, just cancelled them
and issued to the school fund in
their place a certificate of indebt-
edness in a like amount and bear
ing the same interest. Now if
everything was honest and square,
why should that have been done?
Can anybody tell me? I'm from
Missouri and you'll have to show
me. | want you to show me, also,
if these certificates OF indebtedness
are carried as cash in the reports of
the State Treasurer and Auditor.
They must be carried that way be-
cause if they don't appear as cash
they don't appear at all. And they
are no more cash than | am, or you
are, and they will never be cash
until the taxpayers of this state
have TO go down in their pockets
and pay them of. And it is per-
fectly clear now that for years
back somebody has been hiding
egg shells in the official reports of
the Auditor and Treasurer, and it
is because Frank Pitts refused to
hide them or TO run the risk of put
ting them in his c~oattail pocket
and sitting down on them, that he
was beat in the state convention by
Allen, a graduate of Seibert's
school, who holds a record for hid
ing more egg shells a minute than
any nan in Missouri except Bill
Stone. Dickens, in one OF his books
of the intense admiration he
had for a venerable raven which
could carry in ito head the exact
locations and the nature OF the con-
tents of the innumerable holes in
the garden in which it had buried
treasure. Ineverm met Allen without
thinking OF that and maryeling at
the genius for detail and the won
memory which enables him
TO carry in his head a map showing
all the holes in which the egg shells
are buried and TO raise the alarm
whenever an enemy is seen APP
preaching one OF these holes with
pick and spade. He squawks again
morning, to VAR the party