The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1902-01-24
PICKING.
The Court House and
City Officials
MARKS FOR BEGGARS
Every Subscription Paper
Reaches Them--TaIk off
Revolt Against the
System.

Public officials may have bed OF
roses, as is popularity believe0pbut in
termingled with the blossoms are
many thorns which goad them at times
to a degree that leads to an explo-
sion. The greatest annoyance that
they have is the constant stream of
beggars who dog their steps from
morning till night and sometimes fol-
low them to their homes at night.
In discussing the matter, many of
the county and city officials have made
the same complaint They say that
they are besieged on all sides by reg
ular army of people who want help
for themselves or some pet project
There are men who want to get arti-
fetal legs or arms, who are either TAX
ing up a collection or selling pencils
or shoe strings at FIVE times their
value; the man who has lost horse
and cannot do anything because his
team is broken, solicitors for. the poor,
for churches, for everything imagin-
able, who make straight shoot for the
court house or the city hall and pre-
sent their cases with an assurance that
is exasperating to say the least.
JUDGES APPROACHED.
They seem to think that because men
are in public office they should pony
up no matter how slight the claim.
Those who are on their first term are
easy picking, but some of the officials
who have been elected for the last
time are a little inclined to be inde-
pendent, yet very few of them care to
be set down as stingy in this regard.
1t is not confined to the men in the
regular county Offices, but the judges
on the bench are approached with as
surance by all collectors, and 1t is safo
to say that q church has not been
built in this county for years that
has not upon the subscription list the
names of quite a number of county Of
ficials. 1t costs the officials some years
well up into the hundreds of dollars
to meet this demand, and many Of
them accept it as philosophically as
they do any other campaign expenses,
though the items are not mentioned
in the expense account that is filed
with the clerk.
RIDICULOUS PLEAS.
Sometimes the collectors even go to
the subordinates about the court house
and insist that because they have a
public position they should donate lib
orally. Occasionally the demands are
so ridiculous that the officials balk up
on the hands Of those who present the
claims and make some rather lurid re-
marks about the parties who approach
them.
There is one class that gets turned
down with great regularity, and that
is the fellow who comes in and asks
for ten cents, or the price of drink.
The only exception is where the fellow
has been party worker for the partic-
ular official whom he approaches, but
when this racket is worked too often,
1t seems to burn up the spark of graft
tude in the breast of the erstwhile can
didate, and the applicant gets the
frosted mitt
Mayor Robertson is another suffer-
er at the hands of this army of beg
gars. They do not come under the
begging ordinance. They go around
with subscription paper and usually be g
for some one else. There is no way
of suppressing 1t, and all that his honor
can do is to smile and reach for the
coin. Others in the city hall are vic
timized with great regularity.
CANDIDATES ARE VICTIMS.
Another class that is called upon
to whack is the prospective candidate.
A really smart person who starts
around with paper to solicit, gets
list of fellows who are ambitious to
hold public Office. This class Is easily
worked in amounts varying with their
financial conditions and the size OF
the salary attached to the Office to
which they aspire.
The defeated candidate Ia one. how
ever, that is dcdged. No one with a
begging paper even has the temerity
to approach him. He Is exempt from
all assessments, and that is about the
only consolation that he has.
There is some talk among the coun-
ty officials of organizing against this
robbery, as they term II. They say
that they are willing to give to any
meritorious charity, but do not like t0
he victimized incessantly by lot ol
irresponsible parties who make NO ef-
fort to collect from the average cit