The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-03-29
yELxs AND THE poyps.

There will be found in another col unn under the caption, Trying to Mis- | lead,' an article from that ergan of fairness. The Opeiika News, It will be observed that we print the News arr ticle entire. We neither garble 1t. nor | try to explain in our own words what the editor of that publication is trying l tor say. We gi te his own words and hts heading of the article. This Is a courtesy wA usually pay our obtem- poraries when replying to th~ q. l. may rot be amiss. however. to gay there are | papers in this State. which do not usu- ally pay us this return courtesy. and one of the chiefest sinners Is The Ope- | lfka News.
 The News complains, first, :h.t the Governor, by the receat sale of the State bonds. lost by not accepting pre- vicus bid. one million eight hundred ! thousand dollars. This is absurd. It Is not true. What the State would have gained by selling the bonds at previous time, Is sum which, at four 1 per cent would have raised moro than thirty thousand dollars per year." and it would not be one million lsight hun | dred thousand dollars, nor yet one half of it. If the Governor had kl ,wn the | future of the money market Le would have accepted the bids a year ago. He recognizes the error, no doubt, into | which he was led. He ec=id not read the future absolutely. If he had had % l. ha h. a most unusual man. In this respect he does not greatly differ from the wise merchant who fails to seize the par ticular psychological moment at which to lay in his stores, and the other particular psychological moment at which to part with them. The farmer who holds his eleven cent cotton for twelve cents, and takes ten cents. knows something of the vagaries of the market. Money has like habits with other commodities. Its volume com pared with the demand. con stantly shifts, and during the past winter, money was worth in New York as high as 125 per cent. and has ruled for months higher than for years. The Governor did not fore see 1t.
 In this particular case, however. the parties who offered a premium on q 1-2 per cent bond ten months ago, wise bankers and brokers did not fore see what money would be worth. or they would not have made such an of- fer. The men who run Wall Street do not know the future. though they large Iy make 1t. Stock holders and bond holders, merchants and cotton farm CTS. none of them know tomorrow. The great God of us all allows us to peep into the future with our feeble vision, but to know at last little or nothing of it's mysteries Tomorrow is a great mystery, and yet the Governor is to be held up to scorn because he did not know what 1t would bring forth.
 Why should The News say the Gov ernor lost a large amount of money tG the State? Why not say, what Is true, that the sale of the bonds saves tbe State over ninety-one thousand dollars per year, or in fifty years over four and one-half millions of dollars. if The News was trying to be fair at all, why not state it this way, that, whereas. now the State pays interest to the amount of s44s.030.0o per year, 1t will. on account of the sales re- gently made, after July of this year, pay out the smaller sum of $357,474.0O per year, a clear saving of $s1,556.00
 
 amount to a sum greater than half Of the States entire debt and that too. without allowing the State any inter- est on this yearly saving.
 In addition to this vast saving in interest, why does not The News say, if 1t wants to be fair that the sale allows the Governor to retire three hundred thousand dollars of the pres ent debt at one stroke, on which in- terest will never be paid by the State again, unless the Legislature chooses to reissue the bonds. Why doesn't The News say, if it wants to be fair, that this will be the first dollar of the States debt paid in thirty years.
 The News article seems to have been written to introduce the last paragraph. the one that tells how great Governor Johnston would have been in this particular field of financial endeavor. Why does not The News content itself with allusions to Gov ernor Johnston's great success in those particular financial undertakings for the State which did occupy him, instead of dreaming what he might have done in other fields and on other occasions.
 Now. The Advertiser did not want to go into Governor Johnston's record, but his political newspaper friends seem bent and determined on forcing a com parison. If the finances of the Jelks administration are to be compared with that of Johnston, and there is no help for it, we will submit.
 About the first thing Governor John ston did when he came into office was to reduce the cost of the lessees of convict labor. Let us quote from the report of the Legislative Committee, see House Journal 1900-19O1 page 797.
 "It is remarkable. that prior to this administration the prices for. convicts and $11.0O on the outside, making a total of $52.00; but for the last four years the prices have been S7.O0, 5000 and $14.00 In the mines, and $500 on the outside, making $S6.00." (For four classes)