Danville intelligencer. [volume] (Danville, Pa.) 1859-1907, 1906-10-26
DOES CARSON
KNOW FURNITURE
II So, He Won't Ac.mit IL To Berr,
Before the Election.

tempts to tide over the CAPITOL graf
discussion urtil after the election
thus proving himself to he as hare
Drained as the "eminentiy respectabl.
advisers" Cf Wesley r. hndr avs and
Penrose. Carson evidently fee!s obi sel
to try TO turn the storm away from
the Governor who appointed bm
State Treasurer Berry. after refu sins
TO pay the bills for the balances due
the grafters Officially asked Carson 8
perfectly proper question, which tbs
Attorney General, in common courtesy,
MS well as in his duty to the state that
pays him fat salary. should have an
swered as plainly as any school boy
who reads the simply worded restric-
lions upon the Board of Public
Grounds and Buildings, could answer
The act OF 1895, reorganizing the
board gave it supposed authority to
buy furniture" and pay for it out of
the general fund" without a specific
appropriation. In each session Of the
legislature, since the passage of the
capitol act of 1901, the general appro-
to the effect that the Auditor General
and State Treasurer should honor the
furniture" requisitions of the board
to an indefinite extent. But II a propo-
sition had been made in the legisla-
ture to add, for furniture" 100000
to the original appropriation for the
capitol. even Frank McClain and other
l.; f,,1 30,
make the amount for completion"
$4,000 900, would have raised a storm
to shake the commonwealth, for Frank,
at that time, was making campaign
capital for Elkin's gubernatorial can
didacy.
The general appropriation paragraph
provided that the limitless or BLANK"
permission to the board should not
permit it to do a hands turn toward
assisting in completing" the capitol.
Now, all that Mr. Berry wanted to get
out of Carson, officially, was an opin-
ion as to whether. even If the board
could legally provide furniture" with
out limit, it could, when expressly for
bidden by the appropriation bills to do
SO, go ahead, as 1t has done, with not
only furnishings" but also with
completing" the capitol by spending
some millions upon irremovable, per-
manent parts of the building
AS the act of 1895 and the appro-
priation bills plainly restricted the
board, and as two legislatures took
the pains to re-assert that restriction.
Mr.. Berry simply desires that Mr.. Car
son, without going into the graft scan
dal at all, should just affirm the plain
mandate of the law against the boards
completing" the capitol. Berry did
not need CarsOn's opinion, but only
aimed to proceed in an orderly way.
Carson was not asked to mix in the
controversy, and yet, instead of taking
up Berry's simple question of whether
white was white or black, launched
into a criticism against Berry's fail
ure to have found out in three weeks
all the rottenness and plundering that
may occupy the time of the coming
legislature for months.
Every Farmer and Laborer Knows.
Until Berry should perform impos-
sihilities before the election, Carson
refused to say whether Berry was
right in judging that window frames,
floors, fireplaces, walls, marble wains-
coting and many other such permanent
fixtures were not furniture. If there
had been no capitol scandal, and Car
son had been asked such a question
in the street, in chance meeting with
a friend, does anybody doubt that the
Attorney General would have answer
ed the question just as every farmer
and laborer in the state Is, today an
swering 1t for himself? But the gang
sters have been driven crazy mad
by the hurricane raised by Berry. and
do not seem responsible for their say
ings or doings.
With Farmer" Greasy reminding
the throngs at the mass meetings of
such facts as the one that Architect
Huston has been awarded as his fees
and commissions a total pay greater
than the presidents of the United
States have received altogether in the
last 10 years. Carson, no doubt, real
ICES that the workingmen are doing
some deep thinking. and the only thing
the gang can do in the hope of dis
tracing the people from the one great
issue is to strive to sidetrack them to
irrelevant matters, just as Penny
packer is doing in his efforts to have
special railroad excursions of the peo-
pie to see that the capitol is very
grand.
That is not the~point with the peo-
pie, who want to know. not the gran
deur or beauties, but the full extent of
the graft and who got it. Furthermore,
since Berry's discovery Of the weak
and fraudulent cement pavement. and
since 1t has been charged that In many
other respects various jobs in the
| building are anything but workman
like" il is about time for the gang to
stop boasting even that the people, al
though grossly buncoed and over
charged, have got g good building.
Berry has begun to show the falsity
of even this claim. and he tells the
people that 1t will take a very long
time to get to the bottom of all the
rascality.