The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1912-10-18

encd IN the Official who uses the pass.
First and last, nearly all public Off
elais have accepted free railway tran DOR
tation but in view of the evident abuses
OF the custom it should be discontinued
by law.
bEe years ago | ran on a platform
which favored a law against the use of
passes by public officials, and this time
my platform has still stronger declara-
tion on this subject.
The McMillin platform contains a
mast ridiculous pronouncement on the
pass question: eve condemn, the issuance
ana giving away of free passes upon
fasoritism," and I'VE instruct for the
passage of law prohibiting such public
service corporations from giving, and
pakhlic officials from accepting, such i'm
proper favoritism."
Now just what does that mean any.
wayf
McMiAin evidently ocnstrues it to
mean that the issuance of pass to him
Aeif 10 highly proper favoritism, as he
Is riding on them all over the state.
Do not believe that Governor McMillin
Or any other man ought to sit on the
State Equalization Board, to pass upon
the assessment of railroad property with
bunch OF passes in his jeans.
Refunding of the State Debt.
In the year 1913 the bonded indebted
ness OF Tennessee, amounting in round
numbers to $12,0O0,OO0 will fall due.
II win be necessary to take up and pay
off the old bonds by the issuance of new
ones. 1t is matter of great impor-
tanse to the people that this transac-
aon be carried out with honesty and bus
mess judgment. 1t is we'll said, in my
platform, that "the refunding of the
state debt should be conducted in broad
open daylight in the interest of the
taxpayer and nobody else, and at the
bwest rate of interest possible"
This matter involves millions of dol
lars Of interest to the state. Not only
must the law authorizing the refunding
be carefully drawn, but the men to whom
The work is entrusted must be men
whose integrity is beyond cavil or ques-
sioA, and whose ability is equal to the
task. Under ordinary circumstances the
work weuld be done by the Funding
Board, composed of the Governor, Comp
troller and Treasurer. The legislature
might empower a special commission to
conduct the transaction. This propo-
sisien is strongly opposed by the Nc
Mhlin platform in the following Ian
gaage:
~This refunding should be done by the
etate Funding Board, without the in
terventlon of an expensive commission"
Il viii be observed that the only OBJ
ieetisn made to a special commission
Is is expensiveness. This is not very
convincing, as the legislature would fix
= Tie compensation of the commission Just
as It would the compensation of the
Fsading Board. The Bill introduced in
the last Legislature proposed to pay So
500 each to tle members of the Funding
Board, and both the Comptroller and the
Treasurer were enthusiastically in favor
Of the bin.
So far as I am personally concerned,
II ! am reelected Governor, 1t will be
a mater of indifference to me by whom
taie Yefunding is DONE so that it is done
with the smallest expense possible, and
the greatest advantage to the state. Ordi-
narily the work should be done by the
Funding Board, but the people are more
concerned about how it is done than by
whom.
Floating the Bonds.
Il i generally predicted that the state
wM not be able to float its bonds at
as low a rate of interest as they now
bear. Certainly it could not have been
done at any time during the past two
years.
It was charged by Mr.. Preston, in his
recent campaign, and in my Judgment
proven, that Governor McMillin lost the
state from two to three million dollars
by defeating the refunding bill pro-
posed by State Treasurer Ed Craig, in
1890. Nearly all of our bonded debt
then bore per cent interest, as it does
now. Mr.. Craig's bill sought to reSlnd
the debt at the same rate of intGLest
on forty years time, with the right
reserved to the state to pay off and re-
tire $350,000 per year, and with the
power of course, to go into the Spen
market at any time and purchase what
ever amount of bonds the state had the
money to pay for. The Craig bill was
carefully drawn, and protected the state
in every particular, as would be expected
coming from q man of such integrity as
Ed Craig. |
have read all that Mr.. Craig has
eaid in relation to this matter, and all
that Governor McMillin has said in at |
tempting to justify his opposition to the
bin. There was only one real point OF
difference between them. Craig's judg- |
ment was that the state would never
get q lower rate of interest than 3 per |
cent, and would almost certainly have
to pay a higher one. McMillin was
afraid to extend the time of the bonds
at the same rate of interest, not because
he claimed that the state would ever
get lever rate, but because the bonds
Then lacked fourteen years of being due,
and he was afraid of perpetuating the
debt by the forty-year extension. He
was apparently unable to see that under
Craig's bill the debt was in no sense
perpesuated, because the bonds werepay-
able in such installments that the aver
age life of the bonds waSCtwenty years.
Moreover, the state could buy its bonds
ON the market at any time that It had
the money, and, if it did not have the
money the extension was necessity.
Subsequent events have justified Craig's
judgment, and parts of his letter to the
legislature of 1899 now read almost like
inspired prophecy.