Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1908-10-22
WRITES AN OPEN LETTER
Discussing Statements Made by At
torney P. 6. johnson in His
Campaign Speeches.
A CANDID STATEMENT OF FACTS

nee Tor StdteS attorney WrItoS An Upen
Letter to Attorney johnson, Who is Seeking
Reflection Touching Upon the Latter's
Campaign Talks Delivered Over the County
During This Month
Dear Sir
In the spirit of fairness and with
malice towards none, | deem it my duty
to myself, to the public and to the cause
of truth, to call your attention to mani
fest mistatements INDUCED in by you in
your public addresses now being made
in various parts of the county. do not
seek to charge you with deliberate ln-
tentto mislead the people, but charltably
consider that your errors of statement
arise rather from mis-judgment, than
from intent to deceive.
In your various public speeches, you
claim the right to set off as against
conceded expensive administration, GER
tain bond forfeitures and fines recovered
under the prohibition law, to the full
aggregate amount of said bond forfei-
lures and fines, thereby attempting to
create the impression among the tax
payers, that the costs and expenses in
CURED in cases where no bond has been
forfeited, can be paid out of forfeited
bonds in other cases.
You ought surely to know that under
the constitution and under the statute
governing the disposition of moneys col
lected from fines and forfeited bonds,
said moneys go to the Estate School
Fund" and not into the General County
Fund. | grant you that under the
prohibition law, the costs incurred in
the case in which the fine or forfeiture
occurred can be paid out of the moneys
collected. In that case for instance
on forfeited bond of say $4,000, in a
case where the costs amounted to say
5000, the S25.O0 can be paid out of the
$4,000 but the balance namely: S27500,
must be credited to the State School
Fund, and distributed among all of the
counties of the state according to their
respective school populations, so that
to the tax payers, as an off set to the
costs of the administration of criminal
law within the county, as you would
have the people believe, only small
fraction of these moneys comes back to
the county and it is a gross mis- state
ment of the fact and of the law to say
that the costs incurred in other cases,
prohibition or otherwise can be deduct
ed from such fine or forfeiture
Permit me to refer you to Section l54
of the Constitution and to Sections 937l
and 9544 respectively of the revised
codes of 1905, of this state, being the
law governing the application of moneys
received from fines and forfeited bonds,
and after you have carefully read and
considered same, say then if you con-
scientiously can, that the costs of your
administration of the prohibition law
has been less than $4,000 to the tax
payers of this county as proclaimed by
you from the public platform.
Had you taken the time to carefully
investigate the actual facts concerning
your administration of the prohibition
law, you would have discovered that
that administration has been much more
expensive and much less successful than
that OF any of your predecessors in of
lice. A careful estimate of the costs and
expenses incurred by you in these cases
for justice fees, offcers's fees, witness
fees juror fees, stenographer fees and
other Incidental expenses for livery hire,
rent etc, connected Herewith will show
an extraordinary expense to the tax
payers of this county of not less than
IS 7s2.SO, after deducting the entire
amount applicable towards such costs
from the fines and forfeltures collected,
1T will further show that the relative
average cost and expense of each pro
hlbitlon case handled by you has been
more than twice as great as the average
costs and expenses of similer cases pro-
secuted during my incumbency of that
office and with less than one-fourth of
the success.
You will understand that it is not my
idea that the quality of the services per-
formed by the important Office of states
attorney should be measured by the ex
pense incurred, except to the extent that
the tax payers have the undoubted right
to complain of expenses unnecessarily
incurred, rather does it seem to me that
the fitness for that office should be made
to depend upon the ability to enforce
law and order at the minimum of ex-
pense-and in this connection / sub
NIT to every candid aud unbiased mind,
that conditions are worse than they
we're during my official term, and greatly
the result Of the i'll considered methods
adopted, characterized by lack Of judg-
ment.