Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-02-02
STATE EXPENSES
\ WERE UP in 1877
Attorney General Had to Make
Ruling That State Should
Pay For Mansion Ice

Forty years ago Capitol Hill was all
stirred up because of a controversy
over what part of the expenses OF
maintaining the Executive Mansion
should be borne by the Common
wealth of Pennsylvania and George
Lear, attorney general under Cover
nor John f. Hartranft, invoked the
classics in ruling that coal, ice and
flowers were necessary to the COM
fort and enjoyment of the people who
visited the official home of the gov
crnors and should be paid from the
funds of the State. Mr. Lear also rul-
ed that the State should pay SIS for
sprinkling Front street in front of
the mansion as proper expense for
the Commonwealth because he reason
ed that the furnishings of the house
might be damaged by dust from the
then unpaved street.
The questions which veXed the OFF,
clal mind in the summer days of 1877
were raised by Justus f.. Temple, of
Greene county, then auditor general
and one of the last of the Democrats
to hold that office, a place which has
been the storm center of successive
administrations. 1t is interesting that
Mr.. Temple stood upon the itemization
of the general appropriation bill and
that he "bucked" on paying the coal
and ice bills and cavilled at the flow
erS because there was no specific ap-
preparation for them.
1t was Mr.. Lear's legal ruling that
the governor was "the host of the peo-
pie" and that the State should enable
him to "dispense-a generous hospital
ity." He held that the State should
pay bills for the upkeep of the man
sion, although the Temple idea, which
was Democratic in days of strenuous
politics. did not accord with the
thoughts of the Republicans of the
Hartranft administration.
There is also something interesting
because or the comment of a recent
governor that the State gave him a
big house and seven or eight servants
and required him to feed them when
he did not need them, in the Lear
opinion of forty years ago. He says
that the State did not provide a build
ing with furniture nor repair and re-
plenish it from time to time for the
mere purpose of affording a residence
for the executive of the State. "The
State" he says, has undertaken to
provide him an abode where he can
meet his guests on true Republican
equality"
The attorney general of that day
quoted Latin and used the homely eX-
preston 'it is necessary to stick in the
bark in this case" in holding that
too minute stress must not be laid
on the strict and precise significance
of words" He says that ito supply
means Ito furnish with anything that
is wanted" and asserted that definition
covers the whole ground from the
fuel to the flowers"
Apparently the legislators of that
day were not given to specific appro-
priations which became the rigorous
rule Immediately after the Capitol
furnishing scandal because he says 1T
would be better to appropriate con-
tingent fund for these purposes, but
it has not been the practice. 1t is inn
possible to describe every item in such
cases In general appropriation bill
But there may be economy in embrace
ing all the public buildings in one ap-
propriation; for several small appro-
priations could be passed by the leg
islature with more facility than one
containing a large sum and yet the
small ones would aggregate much
more than the large one"
Evidently Mr.. Lear has his ideas
about expenditure of money because he
adds "and there will be economy in
paying the items referred to out of
the appropriation of $4,000 rather
than have it expended, as it will be,
for other purposes if not so applied
and at the next session of the legis-
lature the supplies or furnishings of
the executive mansion will be pro-
vided by a special appropriation. The
refusal to pay these items out of the
present appropriation would undoubt-
edly result in the expenditure of the
$4,000 in some other way"
After saying that the items are
proper and should be paid he con-
cludes "I will therefore share with
you the responsibility of approving
the bill before you"
The opinion is rich in the legal
phraseology of the day and in addi-
tion is filled with florid sentences
which roam from natural history to
the religious.