The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1913-02-27
Especial to the Times.Record.)

jamestown, Feb. 22.--ln an inter
view here today Gov. Hanna expressed
himself on several matters Of state
and legislative interest, as follows:
"The legislature has only some ten
or eleven days left. The work is
pretty we'll along. There have been
more bills introduced in this session
Of the Legislature, | believe, than at
any previous session-somewhere be-
tween eight and nine hundred, in both
house and senate.
The d1ouse and Senate Committees
on appropriations have worked faith.
fully and hard to cut the appropria-
tions down so that they may come
within the revenues of the state and
has to large degree been successful
IN so doing. It is difficult in a state
like ours, where the revenues are not
large, to take care Of the running er-
penses OF the Government of the State
to care for the institutions an dat the
same time to provide adequate and
necessary buildings and appropriate
money for other purposes that are
needed and do this all at the same
time.
I have found the state officers will
ing and anxious to help in every way
! to economic in their departments so
that the expenses may be kept down
to the minimum, and really believe
that by practioing economy all along
the line, that in the next two years, at
the close of the biennial period, will
be able to show all bills paid, the ap-
preparations as made b this legisla-
ture, taken care of and, / hope small
balance at least, left in the general
fund.
I have been especially interested in
getting the authority as Governor to
employ expert accountants to audit
the State Department and State In.
stitutions, and also to start at least
the work Of putting the counties upon
some uniform system of bookkeeping
and accounting. If this authority is
given me by the legislature, and I be-
lieve it will be, and 1 consider it the
most important piece of legislation
before the legislature at this session.
under this system I will employ char
tered, registered accountants, outside
. OF the state, who will come here, ex-
perts in their line and who do their
work efficiently, and will have every
state institution thoroughly examined
! and an inventory made Of all the pro-
perty, and a careful system of book
keeping and reporting installed in
every one of them. The same to be
true as to every state Office. Even in
the common school and institution
funds of the state, fund aggregating
almost $4,000, 100000 Of dollars. This
money is invested in far mcontracts,
farm mortgages, various kinds Of
bonds and investm ents of similar char
acter. This fund has stood since
statehood, almost twenty.three years,
and has never had borough examin-
alton from statehood down to the pre-
sent time. This 1 shall have done if
given authority to do so, and shall
have these chartered, accountants go
through every state Office and bring
everything down to date, and they will!
make such changes or suggestions as
to Bookkeeping methods and reports
as will simplify the work in the Of
fees, and will give us cutoff so that
in the future it will not be necessary
to go back so far but we shall only
have to go back to the time that this
audit was made.
There have been various resolutions
Introduced in the legislature this win.
ter, calling for investigations and the
Investigations are now being made by
members OF the legislature and the
men upon these committees are doing
the best they can but they have other
duties to perform and they cannot go
into the detail and get right down to
the bottom of matters as should be
done and as can and will be done by
registered, chartered accountants. l
regret these resolutions were intro
duced in the legislature, for the rea-
son that I knew the investigations
could not be as thorough as they
might have, and I do not like the idea
going abroad that there Is any thing
wrong in any of the departments. If
there ds the right way to get at 1t Is
to have the examinations that I have
asked the legislature 20 give me au.
thority to have. made, and If l am
given this authority, then If there is
anything found that IS wrong, 1t will
be known, and if there is not anything
wrong, then the people OF the state
xr,SD Au>- Ahn% ol1r nnA Shov viii oof