The Brunswick news. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 1906-2016, 1909-06-09
THE FEE SYSTEM AGAIN.

ga legislature 70 enact legislation at
its coming session looking to the abo-
lition Of the Ubiquitous fee system.
The Macon News. in a recent issue,
discussing the subject, says:
The Georgia legislature will con-
vene in annual session on the twenty
third Of this month and no doubt, in
conformity with the well-established
custom Of this and other legislatures.
it will make a great many laws of
more or less usefulness before it adj
journs.
The News desires once more to di-
rect the attention Of our lawmakers
to measure of great and general
utility in their province to enact look
ing to the abolishing of the fee system
for paying certain state and county
officials and substituting salaries COM
mensurate with the dignity and i'm
portance of the respective officials in
stead.
AT large meeting composed of
many Of the most prominent and rep
resentative citizens from various sec
lions of the state held in Macon on
Monday, May "a. in the interest of
good roads for automobiles, and ne
cessarily of all other vehicles as well,
throughout the state, Mr. A. j. Long,
a county commissioner of Bib coun-
ty, offered the following resolution
which was adopted without a dissent
ing vote, SO far as was heard:
Resolved, that this convention Pc
tition the legislature to pass a law
by which each county in the state can
by vote of it's citizens, change the
remuneration for its officers from a
fee system to a salary system and
place the money saved by the salary
system into fund to be expended on
the roads Of the respective coun-
ties
The state at large and the big
counties such as Bib, Fulton. Chat
ham, Richmond, Muscogee, Floyd and
others especially, have long outgrown
the fee system. 1t is a remarkable
situation when calmly considered that
the state and county taxpayers should
be assessed to build modern court
houses and other public buildings and
furnish the appliances and services
required by modern conditions for the
conduct of the mass of public bust
ness which has Increased manifold III
bulk and that the revenues from this
public business should go without any
definite accounting or even approx
mate estimate in so far as the public
| Is informed into the pockets of the
public officials. Anyone who glances
at the fee bills laid down in the state
code enumerating the multiplicity Of
services, nominal in the main, for
which the solicitors general, sheriffs,
clerks of court and others are paid
stated sums must marvel after some
mental calculation, at the probable
extent of their remuneration, which is
left to conjecture since these officials
are not even requird to keep an ac
count of their receipts by which the
public, which is party to the con-
tract for service, may know what 1t is
paying its servants.
1T is certain, however, that in view
of the mass of business that has de-
veloped in the bigger counties of the
state that these officials are being
paid in excess of all reason and at the
expense of the people whose burdens
in keeping up the public establish
ments are being steadily increased
without any proportionate return of a
compensatory nature.
1T is certain that in Bibb county if
our popular and efficient officials were
put on liberal salaries sufficient to
maintain them on a plane suited to
the importance of their offices and all
fees were turned into the county
treasury the county would easily be
enabled to employ the necessary free
labor in conjunction with the convict
force TO maintain the roads in every
part of the county in unexceptionable
condition.
will the legislature pass the act
asked. for. enabling the taxpayers Of
Bib county. with others. to pass upon
-es-E- I