Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1914-10-23

IT our LlleNuS ldu no more ina
approached the amount of expend
lures which had preceded their ir
auguration into power. if they ha
no more than equaled the amour
which had been expended during tn
immediate previous congresses, VIII
would be their position with refer
ence to this subject of extravaganza
1t would seem that they would sti
be clearly within the inhibition an
within the anathema which they IN
assessed upon their predecessor. Bu
what is the situation? 1t is not tia
it has been equaled, and thereby j
subject to their own charge of extra
vagance, but it has far exceeded dur
ing the last IS months that of tn
previous congresses or the previou
months of the previous administration
That which they denounced as
shameless waste approaches econ
omy in The light of the record of
these past Is months.
1 read from statement of william
J. Bryan made at the Minnesota fai
in 1908 He said:
The Democratic platform makes
Republican extra a:;ance one of the
issues of the present campaign.
The Republican platform is silent
on the subject and naturally so;
TO have promised economy would
have been a mockery and to have
defended the appropriations made
by the last congress would have
been impossible.
At that time the appropriation:
to five hundred millions
Now they amount to almost a billion
two hundred million. Mr.. Bryan also
said:
Why is it that the Republican
party is SO much more eXtrava-
CANT than the Democratic party
in the expenditure of the public
money? There are two reasons:
First, because the Republican
leaders are more intimately as
sociated with the tax eaters than
the taxpayers.
1 am wondering if that situation
has been in any degree reversed.
am reminded of a cartoon which /
saw about the time the Democratic
party went into power. 1t represented
a coon leaving the Republican tree
could for the Democratic tree. That
coon was supposed to be the special
or the tax eater. Whether
he has solidly and securely locked
himself in the branches of that UNI
brageous tree or not 1 do not know,
but a person could almost convict the
party upon the statement of the dis
.inguished leader of the Democratic
party himself.
What the Figures Show.
Take their own figures. We are
seeking here to raise sos, 100000 by
axation. If this sos, 200, 900 is about
1905, 100000 more than the amount
which the Republicans expended and if.
to the statement which you
lave made time and time again the
were extravagant, will it
lot be admitted without further argu-
nent that the logic of the situation is
hat this s1O5,00O,000 is due to an ex-
expenditure of government
unds? If we had reached the limit,
S you said, where we were subject
o condemnation, and you have ex-
eeded it by 5000 600. will any one
ave the temerity to say to the people
f this country that the excess of levy
5 due to the war in Europe? If you
re spending nearly two hundred mill
ion more than the amount which
hose now in power declared to be
rossly extravagant, how can you just
fy this tax? If you had praeticed
he economy even of your predecessor
a power, you would not now be raising
his hundred million. and the fact that
evenues decreased would not have
urt your treasury, you would have had
efficient in the treasury, notwith-
tanding the falling off of revenues.
But that is not all. The senator
-om Alabama (Mr. Bankhead) in dis
ussing the river and harbor bill. said
nat this was but the beginning and
lere is more to follow. He said:
I believe it is the duty of the
senate to have some regard for.
the condition Of the treasury. We
are now preparing to so out into
the highways ANA byways and levy !