The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-10-24
cANDLER,s yALEDIoroRY.

After four years in the once OF Gov
ernor, Hon. Allen d. Gambler turns
over the reins of go yernment to his
successor and retires to private citizen
ship In his final message to the Leg
islature Gov. Gambler directs attention
TO the fact that the state is in better
condition than it was four years ago-a
! circumstance which must afford him
! satisfaction, since he has been 80 closely
1 connected with public affairs during
the intervening period. Gov. Gambler
n has given Georgia a clean and honest
4 administration, and he returns to pri-
vate life with the respect and good will
| of all the people. 1t is possibly
true that he has not been permitted to
4 witness the contamination of all the
reforms which it was his ambition to
assist in effecting when he was first
| indicted into office: but. IL that be the
case, it was through no fault of his.
He has consistently and persistently
/ advocated those changes and retrench-
ments which he deemed necessary and
/ advisable for the best interests of the
| people, yet in some instances the law
making body has left him powerless
to carry out his ideas and recommen-
dations. With it ALL however, Gov
Gambler may felicitate himself upon
having given Georgia four years of
| good government.
His farewell message will be read
with interest, because it is the sum-
mary of opinion of man who knows
what he is talking about from close
personal association. His recommen-
dations are the result of four years
contact with the problems treated.
Thus when he says there should be
pension reforms. it is because he
knows there are and have been PEN
sion abuses; and as a good citizen, an
old soldier and a taxpayer, he wishes
to see those abuses abated. That there
are many names on the rolls which
ought not to be there cannot be doubt
ed" he says, land some reforms in
the pension laws should be made in
order to eliminate them" Like all
other patriotic Georgians, he is willing
and anxious that every needy and de-
of such soldier should receive state
aid; but he is not willing that persons
who neither need nor deserve pensions
should receive them, 1t has been FREE
quently asserted, and never denied,
that there are pensioners on the rolls
who are in much better finan-
cial condition than a very great
many of those who pay the
taxes from which the pension
money comes. This is an injustice
which should not be tolerated The
pension burden is at present quite
heavy. The pension budget is now
$S5S,000 a year, and in year or two,
at the current rate of growth, it will
be million dollars. No other South
ern state has any such pension budget.
1t is, of course, a pleasure and
pride to have Georgia lead all of her
sisters in bounty to the old soldiers,
but that bounty should never be per-
mitted to become the source of scan
dial, like the pension system of the ma
tional government.
There was an excess of expenditures
over receipts by the state treasury dur
ing the year OF something over 100000,
says the Governor The trouble was
the arrearages due school teachers, and
the new pensioners admitted to the
rolls without proper provision having
been made for them. Is it not a bit
strange, by the way, that these arrear-
ages of salary are always due
the school teachers, and never
the Office holders? In some man
ner or other the office holders always
manage to get their money when it is
due, but the teachers have to wait.
And while they are waiting many of
them are forced by stern necessity to
discount the states obligation to them.
The responsibility for the failure to
provide money with which to pay the
new classes of pensioners rests with
the Legislature. New obligations
should not have been made without
arrangements having been provided to
meet them.
The Governor makes some interesting
comments on the convict-lease system,
NAASh AAC says 10 SSAiOuSly III HeeQ OF
reform. One point needing at
tention is this: at has been alleged
that in some instances prosecuting off,
GERS and court officials who profit by
this practice of collecting the hire of
this class of convicts and dividing the
money out among themselves in pay
ment of insolvent costs have a capt.
tai understanding with some of the
lessees of misdemeanor convicts, and
that such court officials are virtually
recruiting officers for private chain
gangs" That is a serious reflection
upon the officials to whom it refers.
The complaints should be investigated
and steps should be taken to prevent
such possible perversions of the law.
AS whole the message is we'll d.
gested paper and merits the attention
of every voter.