The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1902-10-24
TRAIL OF THE GRAFT.

The trail of grating under the
present state administration is found
everywhere On of the worse cases is
the famous code job. It smells to heav-
en-. The job has cost the state. first
and last, more than 100000. 1t was
bad enough when the present admin
istration came into power. The worth
| less codes were heritage from the for
mer. The field seemed to be an es-
/ pecially inviting one to the new hands
at the helm and they proceeded to or
ganize a grand raid.
| The original effort had been to Sc
cure Codes but it failed miserably. The
second effort was not to secure any
thing but a graft" An act was passed
providing that the worthless codes
| should be gone over by a new COM
mission to make expurgatiOns and to
replace matter that had been dropped.
The bill further provided that the
codes so dOctored should be printed
and issued as evidence of the law. For
this purpose an appropriation of $4,000
was made That was the sole purpose Of
the measure-the appropriation of state
money for the aid of a party paper It
was not supposed the codes would be
of any value-it was not intended they
should be. The only thought was to get
that $4,000 out of the public treasury
into the Golfers of the organ
The original project was to secure a
COdificatiOn of the laws of the state
The project failed. and on the ruins the
Hunt administration founded a raid
upon the public treasury for the pur-
pose of aiding the party organ. The
plan of having the laws codified was
dropped and something to be regarded
as evidence of law was to be palmed
off on the public in return for the
$4,000 or so of additional money taken
from the state funds.
1t was a wretched piece of business
At the time. it was denounced. but
those managing the steal were case
hardened. They were arrogant and
determined, thinking they could do
anything without being called to ac-
count. The spirit was manifested then
that has been shown ever since. But
the people were not so easily lulled to
sleep respecting the wrong-doing of
those placed in authority, and, now.
when the administration is before the
howl with impotent rage because these
things are talked of by the people when
they give their reasons for believing
the governor should not be reelected.
In their confusion the Democrats
adopt the rOgues method of defense
charging somebody else with having
done wrong. In connection with this
matter of the code steal, they seek to |
justify themselves by charging that |
Mart Patrie, while secretary of state. |
gave out a great printing job Speci- |
fically the charge is that he had so |
many envelopes printed for the use of
the legislature that 10000 were left ov-
er. If he had done anything of that
kind it would not be a justification for
the Hunt administration in making this
great steal for the benefit of the state
organ but the fact is that Patrie or
1ered only $4,000 envelopes for the leg
stature, about the usual proportion.
some fellow with more zeal than
honesty got into the storeroom and
found a collection of legislatiove en-
relOpes left over from the legislature of
4 dozen years or so ago and counted s
hem all as having been ordered by Pa
RE He made the number out as TO- I
100. and now these baffed, enraged t
Democrats charge that the former sec I
etary of state ordered that many in
.xcess of the requirements If their e
ury had not added their brains they {
would take little care to find out more /
bout the envelope business before q
ushing into such a defense of their c