The Green Forest tribune., 1915-07-23
Little Rock


 Attorney General William l.. Moose is severely criticised by the legisla tive Investigating committee in it's re port on his office filed with Governor Hays. The committee concludes its report with the following summary of its criticisms:
 That the attorney general has kept very inadequate records of money received and paid into the treasury.
 That he used the Southern Trust Company as subtreasury or deposi- tory for most of the funds that have come into his possession and checked them out indiscriminately with bank checks in face of the statute against him depositing the money or the bank receiving 1t.
 That he has dealt in state war rants.
 That he has employed special counsel at a cost of more than S7,000 fin one instance, when he could have done the work himself in less than seven hours and saved this amount to the taxpayers.
 That while he was employing spe- cial counsel he was doing private practice.
 That he failed to comply with the law in not itemizing his inheritance tax collections in his biennial re- pprt."
 - .s.s. The Report
 s. a5aader of the report, report fol, lows or+
 Hon. George W. Hays, Governor,
 State of Arkansas.
 ''We hand you herewith the report of the accountants on the office of the attorney general, covering the en- tire administration of the present in- cumbent, Hon. William L. Moose. We find in this department, as in some of the others, a lack of method and system in handling the records of the department-in fact, there is no meth cd or system whatever and practically no records are kept in the depart ment.
 While the attorney general is not a bonded officer, yet he collects from $75000 to $100,000 annually, and in- stead of remitting this direct to the treasurer, as he is commanded by the law to do, it has been his custom to deposit the greater portion of these collections in the Southern Trust Company, banking corporation of the city of Little Rock, and keep it there for many, many months, dribbling in- to the treasury what he has not check ed to other sources on various and sundry personal checks The greater portion of this money is collected on inheritance and franchise taxes. Keeping no record of the money, when he receives 1t, or the names of the individuals by whom it is paid and waiting so long to pay it into the ueasury, the result has been that he forgets the names of many of the es- tates from which hc has collected IT, her1tance taxes and our accountants found in their effort to balance his ac- counts that he had S2,236.96 In the Southern Trust Company more than he could account for. When this fact was discovered, the attorney general came to this committee and suggested that as he had more money than he knew what to do with, he felt that he ought not to be criticised for the fact, be- cause 1t showed, he thought, that he had not used any of the states money for his own personal benefit.
 $s,365.21 Due the State.
 Tt is the duty of the attorney gen eral to collect all delinquent franchise taxes as certified to him. We find from the accountants report that there is balance due on delinquent fran chise taxes for the years 1913 ant 1914 of s8,365.21. Just why thi: amount has not been collected we ars not satisfactorily advised by the at s~-~----~~--~----