The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-09-07
LIGHT ON BONDS.
Cold Facts With Reference to
School Fund.
Commission Must Answer for
Its Official Acts.
THEIR SACRED TRUST.
No Excuse for the Action of
Board.
An Effort to Divert the Real
Issue.
The Clay Center Dispatch says:

Coleman, Burrow and Dayhoff printed
today, concerning the Comanche bond
| DEAL fatty contradicting, as it does, the
essential points of the State Journal S
| charges against these gentlemen, re-
published in these columns some days
ago, places the accused officials in a
much better light before the people. 1t
is a good move, too, on their part, that
| they have expressed a willingness To
! waive all formalitieS of law and have
| those libel suits come to immediate
| trial. All of which the friends of Mir.
| Coleman, particularly in his home coun-
| ty, Will be glad to see. In justice to
Mr.. Coleman, the Dispatch wishes to
say that it disavows the State Jour
nails article in so far as it reflects upon
Mr. Coleman's personal and official in
tegrity. We do not believe he is q
boodler. We have criticised some of his
| official acts and shall do so whenever
we think they deserve criticism, but,
nevertheless, it will take more than the
naked charge to convince us that Mr..
Coleman received one cent for render
! ing the opinion necessary to enable the
school fund commission to buy those
| bonds, and do not believe he would en-
tertain any proposition carrying with
| it a monetary cOnSidera tion in return
| for an official act
Again the same paper says: LAS will
be noticed in another place the State
Journal does not feel at all frightened
over the prospect of having to pay that
| $45, 900 damages. 1t states that it is
ready to prove its charges against the
members of the school fund commission
and the quicker it gets into the courts
the better it will be satisfied. The peo-
pie want this matter brought to head
as soon as possible also. Let there be
something doing"
The State Journal has not charged
that Mr.. Coleman got any of the rake
off, in the Comanche county bond deal.
1t does not know whether he got any
thing financially out of the deal or not.
rT1I,o in 5oiS
What it does believe is that Mr..
Coleman is anxious to do officially just
about whatever certain of his friends
want him to do. 1t believes that he
realized that it was a questionable
transaction to purchase Comanche
county bonds at all or at 4 II per cent
when the commission of which he is
a member had been offered the same
bonds at per cent, especially when
it was necessary for the state, the pur-
chaser, to itself make an arbitrary
increase in the assessed valuation of
the property of Comanche county from
$632.553 to $1,G41,771, and then to
overturn all precedents by a ruling
that bonds should be purchased on
the valuation arbitrarily fixed by the
state board of equalization instead of
the valuation returned by the county
itself. 1t required an opinion from
the attorney general to oVerturn this
precedent and the State Journal be-
HeveS that when A. A. GODDARD, T. T.
Kelly and perhaps some others want
ed this opinion, Mr.. Coleman was glad
to find a way to give it.
Whether any state officers got any
thing financially out of the Comanche
county bond deal or not the deal is
disreputable one and the commissions s
action reflects upon its members. If
the state officers concerned went into
h 40 nj r~nlx for
safely investing the state school fund
and with no desire to enable Mr.. God
ard to make $4,000 or more out of it,
it is certainly astounding that it re-
quired the utmost secrecy, the hiding
of the records from the public, the
registration of the bonds out of bust
ness hours, the purchase of the bonds
on an inflated valuation fixed appar-
emily for the purpose by the state
board of equalization, the radical over
turning of former precedents. The
value of the bonds an investment
was a matter of doubt in view of the
excessive Indebtedness of the county
and the fact that all Comanche coun-
ty school district bonds held by the
state were past due and unpaid, bonds
for which the county must care.
There was no demand for this sort
of deal. The school fund commits
sion has never been criticised for not
making more investments. On the
other hand there has been criticism
of the kind of investments the COM
mission had made and the manner in
which they have been made.
The state school fund is a sacred
trust placed in the hands of the
school commissioners by the people of
Kansas for investment for the benefit
of the school children of the state. |
The people of Kansas do not demand
speculative investments for this fund
so much as they do absolutely safe
investm ents.
Messrs. Burrow, Dayhoff and Cole
man cannot argue that they were an
xious to make this investment so as to
bring in as large revenues as possible
for the annual school fund during
their administration, for many of their
other investments contradict this If
that were so they would not have
purchased thousands and thousands of
dollars worth of bonds, allowing the
holders to clip off the interest coupons
to come due for the next three or four
years so that the state will not receive |
a cent of interest from them for a long
time.
This is exactly the sort of a deal that
MIR. BurrOw, of the Home Investment |
company. the owner of certain Smith
Center bonds, made with Mr.. Burrow as |
a member of the school fund commits |
sion, just nine days after he went into
office, allowing the first Mr.. Burrow to |
make a profit of S2,050 in clipping in
terest coupons not yet due, and keeping
the state school fund from receiving
any interest on the bonds for several |
years.
1t should be remembered in connec-
ton with this Comanche county bond |
deal, too. that up to the meeting of the |
last legislature the school fund COM
mission could not buy bonds in any
county or municipality where the total |
ind 0dnoSS ad 0f