Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1912-06-27
USELESS INSPECTORS.

been said In recent years dDOuI INC
ever increasing taxes and people get
on their ears when they dig down
in their pockets to pay them. Some
of these are unthoughtful enough to
take their spite out on the county
treasurer, as though that official was
to blame but only very few people
give attention to the subject at the
right time. They wait until the esti-
mates are all made up and then
blame the people whose duty 1t Is
to simply levy and collect the re-
quired amount of money to meet
these expenses.
/ To cure the evil of this ever In
creasing tax burden, the tax payers
must look deeper for the cause and
then apply the remedy. One OF
these leaks in the public treasury
lis a lot of useless inspectors" trav-
cling all over the state inspecting
thousand and one things at the ex-
pense of the public for which the
public absolutely does not derive one
cents worth of benefit.
About the only thing we would
especially fight for If we were a men,
Der of our state legislature would be
to cut off the heads of about nine
tenths of these useless but expensive
jobs.
There are a herd of deputy game
wardens without whose services the
state could continue to worry along.
There are the pure food inspectors,
the weights and measures inspectors,
the deputy grain inspectors, the de-
putty oil inspectors, the factory in
spectors who reach out to every little
country printing office, blacksmith
shop and cross-corner grocery store,
crossing and re-crossing each others
steps and duplicating each others
work.
They all cost money. One Of these
called at the Gazette office Saturday
and all he could find was to suggest
that little box be erected inches
high to protect person from stub
bling his toes in a small belt hole in
the floor. OF course no one could
stub his toe on the box and his other
suggestion was to box in the starting
wheel OF the cylinder press. We
suppose he thinks this wheel mad no
purpose except as an ornament and
that in his Judgment rough board
box would be more ornamental even
than the smooth surface wheel.
We are not kicking on being in
spected. We care nothing about it.
We can easily put the s inch box
around the belt hole in the floor and
are not afraid to let the press run
in its present condition as 1t was
intended to run, but it probably cost
the tax payers of Kansas $25 to
have these valuable suggestions made
to us as a private individual.
There is scarcely week goes by
that there is not an Inspector of
some sort or description VINO visits
Beloit and the tax payers foot the
bills. They are usually a clever set
of fellows and we hold no grudge
against any of them personally but
that does not prevent our calling
attention to the fact that thousands
of dollars of such expenses and
salaries should be Topped off. The
time to kick about these things is
not when you pay your taxes but
when you elect men to represent you
in the legislature.
We may be in error and If so we
stand ready for conviction, but we
can see no necessity for the existence
of the board of county assessor or
those of the board Of review in each
township. as applied to'a county Ike
Mitchell.
These questions may all have two
sides but they deserve serious con-
sideration in view Of the fact that
unless there is some check made in
the expenditures our tax burden VIII
make It improbable to own any
property for rental purposes in the
near future and discourage the home-
builder IN his efforts to acquire al
home for himself.
There IL one thing that can be
said IN favor OF Wllian klIaa