The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1915-06-04
Legislative GrafterS Halted
By Auditor DOnahey
In Raid On Treasury For
Service Not Rendered

columbus, o., June 3-Supporters of
the administration of Governor Willis
are feeling gratified that the censure
of his work by the Executive Board of
Ohio Federation of Labor was not
more severe than it was, but even SO
there is little doubt about how labor
feels about the treatment accorded it
by the Willis legislature. In a state
ment issued and signed by the execu-
tive officers the general assembly is
charged that it mot only failed to ex-
ecute the platform pledges made to Ia
Dor, but its members offered for con-
sideration and passage bills to amend
the child labor laws. impair the work
mems compensation law, and repeal
the law providing for the non-partisan
election of judges, which had they
been successful, would have destroyed
the results of many years of effort on
the part of organized labor and the re-
form forces of the state" Also is the
administration arraigned for failure to
keep the social justice" pledge to the
people.
To those who have been in intimate
touch with the work of the first five
months of the Willis administration
and who have seen the insults and
snubs heaped upon the representatives
Of labor, the official statement is mild
mild, indeed,
The numerous employees of the SEN
ate and the house of representatives
are still drawing their pay, though the
legislature has adjourned This is be-
cause, among other gratis, the Willis
Legislature restored that of paying all
employees ten days extra and for which
no service was rendered. This, of
course, is in keeping with the pur-
chase of pocket knives, carnations and
other gifts for the members them
selves. But the legislative grafters
have run up against Auditor of State
Donahey, who declares that he will not
issue warrants for the ten days extra
pay unless the employees make oath
that they rendered the ten days SER
vice.
When State Auditor Donahey begins
checking up supplies on the members
of the Eighty-first general assembly,
and calls on them to deliver, there is
going to be some tall scrambling.
Among other things the members of
the Willis legislature did was to recog-
nize the monetary value of supplies
furnished by the state. Some of them
who shipped their law books and ct
ceteras home can deliver, but the fel-
low who sold his is going to be up
against it. One of the senate attaches
is said to have cleared more than
thousand dollars on state supplies
which he bought from members and
then sold to dealers.
This is from the Portsmouth Times:
One of the boldest frauds perpetrat-
ed on the voters last fall was the claim
that the Cox administration had rented
a hundred buildings more or less,
about capitol square, to house the num-
erous new divisions created in state
government, at cost of tens of thous-
ands of dollars. So brazen was the
fraud that books, purporting to give
a list of these additional quarters and
pictures of them, were scattered about
like falling leaves. The truth
was that quarters listed and shown
were practically in use for state pur
poses when Cox became governor
and in the main, had been for years
prior thereto. That, however, makes
another story, which is just now ap-
pearing, The statehouse, built decades
ago, has long been inferior to the task
of housing the various features and