Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-08-30
Governor Plaisted
Visits Ellsworth,

His Excellency, the Governor of Maine
Hon Frederick w. Plaisted, often called
"Kernel Fred for short, visited Ellis
worth last Saturday and in the evening
addressed his fellow-citizens in Han
cock hall. The hall was fairly well filled
and the audience was about equally
divided between Democrats, Republicans
and women.
His Exeellency was at his best; he Is
fne-looking chap, and he knows it
Promptly on being introduced by Can,
didate-for-the-Legi Harvard c
| Jordan. he struck the attitude which h'
invariably assumes just before giving
his exhibition of word-painting, at whici
he is an acknowledged adept. He ex-
pressed his pleasure at being again in
Hancock county. especially in Els
worth; he praised her men, complimented
her women, and did not forget to refer
to the hi of a lot of fine scenery we've
got stuck up around here.
Up TO this point he done splendid ;
then he began to talk politics; he start
ed in right at the beginning OF his adj
ministration: how he found an empty
treasury, and unpaid bills amounting TO
hundreds of thousands of dollars, the
states credit exhausted. and the situa-
ton altogether most deplorabie.
He gave correctly to a cent the liabili-
ties of the State-but by some strange
alteration of mind failed to mention the
assets, clearly intending to leave the i'm
preston that there We're none, and would
be none until the debt-raising factory
of his own administration could be got
into working order.
Unpaid bills at the close of the pre-
vious administration? of course there
We're; it's always the case, and always
will be, and nobody knows it better than
Gov. Plasted. Practically the entire tax
levy of 1910, collectible in 1911, was
available to pay those leftover bills.
and, as matter of fact. it was collected
and used for the purpose intended.
Why did the Governor fail to mention
that in January, the first month of his
administration, over s1,50o.000 of the tax
of 1910 came into the treasury and was
used to pay those leftover bills; why
didn't he mention that almost s500.vvo
more came in in February, and almost
00o0 came in in March?
He either knew all this or he didn't;
IL he did his failure to mention it is moth
ing short of an intention to deceive; il
he didn't he has no business going about
the State talking on State finances.
Whichever horn of the dilemma he
chooses. he was guilty of stating a half
truth, all the more dangerous because
coming from the lips of one high in au-
thority.s If the people in Hancock county
have one-half the intelligence with which
the governor himself credits them, does
he suppose they were hoodooed by his
speciousness and platitudes?
Another most fragrant attempt TO de-
ceive was in what the governor said
about the railroad rebate taxes. In 1891.
the State granted, for reasons wholly
to every body at the tine, a
rebate of 95 per cent. of its taxes for 20
years. That agreement expired by limit
alton in 1911, and the roads full tax for
that year was collected And yet the
governor would have us believe that his
had succeeded in collect
ing tax of some $4,000 in 1911 which his
Republican predecessors had failed every
year for the past 20 years to collect!
Did ever a governor of Maine in all
its history offer as a reason for re-